


all that is good.

by littlemarionette (orphan_account)



Category: Women's Soccer RPF
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-06-16
Updated: 2015-10-01
Packaged: 2018-04-04 15:25:12
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 36
Words: 74,109
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4142856
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/littlemarionette
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>The first time she laughs at you, you are sure your heart will stop beating.  You have listened to her answer questions about Germany, say a few things in the language like she’s been speaking it since birth, joke with your teammates at the table.  You have taken notice of the way her doe eyes light with passion when she talks about Frankfurt and her family, and you’ve fallen in love with the way she begins to talk out of the corners of her mouth and slip into a slight accent as she talks longer and longer about her home away from home.  You’ve watched her giggle her betrayal as Heather Mitts tries to pull a prank on Hope, and you’ve found yourself studying the smallest thing—the curve of her hands clasped together on the table, the heavy blink of her eyes as she admits she’s a little jet-lagged, the crinkle of her nose when she laughs.  And you realize that you want to be the one making her laugh.</i>
</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. the first day.

**Author's Note:**

> I’m not sure of the exact timeline of the Ali/Ashlyn relationship, but since this isn’t real I don’t guess it matters. This is December 2010, around when I know Ashlyn to have become a regular call up to the national team. Ali would be freshly in from Germany for camp. I know they likely met before this time, and I know that Ashlyn would know who Ali is, but I’m taking creative freedom. :)

_New York, New York. December 2010._

_The first time you see her, she’s running late as usual. Her Nike sneakers are untied, and she’s dangerously close to tripping over the laces as she runs inside. Behind her crash two suitcases, bouncing against each other precariously as they catch on her heels, dangerously close to making her trip. In one hand is her iPhone, its screen cracked and dimmed. With the other, she is dragging her luggage and trying to pull the strands of windblown hair from her mouth at the same time. She nearly loses her balance as she slips past the double doors, one foot stomping the other’s shoelace. Her soft lips are drawn into a thin, worried line, and those wide doe eyes flicker around nervously. She’s running late as usual._

_The first thing you notice is not her untied shoes or that she packed entirely too much for only a week. You do not notice that she is almost half an hour late or that her naked iPhone is shattered. It does not occur to you that she is clumsy when she doesn’t have a ball at her feet or that she looks concerned almost all the time. Instead, you notice the slope of her jaw as it meets her neck, where a white scarf covers her throat from the bite of December in New York. You can’t take your eyes off the curve of her cheekbones as she stands facing away from you. And for the first time in maybe years, you find yourself with your mouth dry, rendered speechless before you even know her name, and it’s only when she speaks that you are able to pick your jaw up from the floor. Her voice does not ring like bells as you thought it would. It’s slow and almost a mumble at first, soft and dripping with a lilt that you are not familiar with. You still have not noticed her untied shoes, or her two suitcases, or her broken phone screen, or that she is late._

_The first thing you want to say to her is hello. She looks lost and scared, and you want nothing more than to make her feel safe and comforted. As she stands a few feet away from you in the lobby, looking around for some sign of familiarity or reassurance, you know only that this is the hotel you will share with her for a week. You know that there are twenty-four other women here for the same purpose, including her, but it will be the hotel you share with her for a week. Her. She has not looked at you yet, but you have not taken your eyes off her. Her scarf slips from her neck to the floor, and you want to pick it up but your feet are suddenly anchored to the floor like you are standing in cement. She retrieves it herself, not even noticing you, and your breath catches in your throat because how can a person be so beautiful that even their hands are attractive?_

_The first thing you say to her is “um.” She has checked into her hotel room and knows now that her roommate is Heather Mitts, not you, and you feel oddly possessive of her even though you don’t even know her name yet. When she speaks, your heart races. You don’t know why, but her voice sends chills up and down your spine, and you are so entranced with that slight accent that you don’t notice that you are still staring at her back. When she turns around, she catches your eyes locked on her—not any particular part of her, but her in general, because she might be the most beautiful human you have ever laid eyes on—and asks if you have a staring problem._

_You answer “um.”_

_It is not a hello or even an introduction, but you have spoken to her, and suddenly you feel your face grow hot and your eyes drift to your own Nike sneakers, their laces tied in neat bows. You are suddenly hyperaware of the fact that you didn’t brush your hair after the nap you took when your flight got in and didn’t put on more deodorant after you played a quick game of air hockey in the arcade of the pizza joint you all went to for lunch. Your voice sounds too high and too girly, and you don’t dare breathe again until she walks away for fear that you still smell like garlic and pizza sauce. You know that your lips are chapped and your cheeks are sunburned, and your mascara is a day old. Your mom always did say that “um” was a filler word and you should never use it, and you know it’s not quite “hello,” but it’s the first word you said to her. It starts running through your mind over and over again, “um” and the way her eyes lit amusedly as you stumbled over those two letters. You do not have a staring problem; you have a her problem._

_The first time you sit by her, she’s late again. (As usual.) It’s dinner—a buffet of something catered in the hotel conference room, lukewarm and tasteless by the time you get through the line—and she comes banging through the double doors right as you’re sitting down to eat. Her hair is wet and wavy from her shower, and she’s changed from her jeans, sweater, scarf, and pea coat to the familiar black sweatpants and red Nike shirt that matches you. (She matches you and twenty-three other women, not including the coaching staff, but all you can think about is how much better she looks in a tight tee shirt than you do.) Her untied shoes have been forgotten, and she has come to dinner with bare feet. You are both fascinated and curious. By now, your chicken is cold and the green beans you heaped onto your plate are slimy, but she smiles across the room and suddenly it feels warm again._

_It is purely coincidence that she sits by you. She is no rookie to the team. The other twenty-three women in the room are her family. For years now, she has been a constant in their lives and they in hers, spending weeks upon weeks with each other. If anything, she is a veteran. The way people greet her is completely different from the way they greet you. When she walks into a room, her name is shouted joyously from fifteen different directions. You want to join in, but instead you smile and repeat her name in your head. Ali. Ali. Ali. Most of them, of course, call her Kriegs or Kriegy or Krieger, but you call her Ali. Still, she comes into dinner late—after Lauren Cheney has said grace and Pia has serenaded you all with an upbeat version of You Are My Sunshine—and you watch her eyes scan the room for a seat before she even gets a plate. You do not notice that her eyes are nervous again, flickering with that ever-present and ever-so-slight doubt, or that her lips are drawn into a worried line. You only notice that the only empty seat in the room is next to you._

_She doesn’t ask any questions when she plops down between you and Hope Solo seconds later, her plate filled with cold chicken, flavorless mashed potatoes, and slick asparagus. A slight breeze follows her as she sits down quickly, and you catch a hint of her sweet perfume as she scoots her chair in and smiles across the table at your teammates. You pick up your sweaty glass and try not to let your hand shake as you take a sip of water to wash down the chicken and want in your throat. You reach for your fork again, and your hand brushes against hers as she reaches for the salt and pepper. The fork clatters to the china plate, and you pray that nobody at the table notices how red you turn. She smiles at you and tells you thanks. You nod. It’s better than “um.”_

_The first time she laughs at you, you are sure your heart will stop beating. You have listened to her answer questions about Germany, say a few things in the language like she’s been speaking it since birth, joke with your teammates at the table. You have taken notice of the way her doe eyes light with passion when she talks about Frankfurt and her family, and you’ve fallen in love with the way she begins to talk out of the corners of her mouth and slip into a slight accent as she talks longer and longer about her home away from home. You’ve watched her giggle her betrayal as Heather Mitts tries to pull a prank on Hope, and you’ve found yourself studying the smallest thing—the curve of her hands clasped together on the table, the heavy blink of her eyes as she admits she’s a little jet-lagged, the crinkle of her nose when she laughs. And you realize that you want to be the one making her laugh._

_It’s an accident that she laughs at you, because you aren’t trying to be funny. You’re trying too hard to be anything but yourself, because you are loud and overbearing and sometimes too brash. For a moment, though, the facade slips, and you say something so authentically “Ashlyn” that she can’t help but throw her head back and squeeze her eyes shut while she laughs that nose-crinkling laugh you’ve found to be just as intoxicating as her voice. It’s only a split second that you allow your guard to go down, but it’s enough. She laughs louder and longer than anyone else, and they all notice it. She apologizes, blaming it on jet lag and exhaustion and being back with her team._

_The first time someone asks you about her, you immediately put up your guard and become defensive. You’re rooming with Hope, who normally keeps to herself and doesn’t inject herself into any team drama or gossip, and you’re all but knocked off your feet when she calls you out on it. She brings it up casually. While you both change from your sweatpants and Nike shirts into different sweatpants and different Nike shirts to sleep in, she manages to slide it into conversation—how’s your first call-up, is everyone being nice, are you excited to learn, is Pia overwhelming you yet, we’re all really excited to have new goalkeeper talent in camp, work hard and my job could be yours one day, so you have the hots for Ali Krieger, do you prefer to shower in the morning or at night?_

_You push back the second she tells you everyone can see it from miles away—Ashlyn Harris has a big fat crush on Ali Krieger. You yell that you have only known her for a few hours, and you’ve barely exchanged a few words. You remember what Mittsy told you laughingly in the elevator—forget about it, Kriegs has been dating the same girl for seven months now, and before her there was a man she loved who couldn’t stay, and before him there was a girl who made Ali believe that the stars were her eyes and the whole world was in her heart. You tell her she’s wrong—you don’t have a crush on Ali Krieger. You aren’t even really lying, because you’re afraid it’s already way more than just a crush—you’re afraid you might be in love with the girl you met six hours ago._


	2. a family.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Is anything ever what we expect it to be?

_New York, New York. December 2010._

_It’s all new to you—the senior national team, Ali Krieger, and love. Two of the aforementioned terrify you, and you won’t admit to anyone (even yourself) which two they are. You know that sleep is far and few between here, so you try to take Hope’s advice and get some shut-eye. But you find yourself unable to sleep, feeling the same way you did as a child on Christmas Eve or the night before a big game or the hours leading up to your trip to Disney World. It’s long after eleven p.m., the hour Pia set for team curfew, and you find yourself wide awake beneath the clean white sheets of a hotel bed and staring up at the ceiling. The longer you try to count sheep or bore yourself to sleep, the more you think about her._

_You think about the light in her cinnamon eyes as she tells stories about Germany and her brother and the woman you are told she loves, and you determine that she is indeed a storyteller. An image of her nose crinkled in laughter is burned into the back of your eyes. The scene of her clattering into the hotel lobby unceremoniously replays over and over in your mind. You think about her long fingers, the slope of her cheekbones, the curve of her jaw, the genuine interest in her eyes as she listens to what you have to say. You can hear her telling you goodnight if you hold your breath long enough, and you are certain you will never stop loving the way your name sounds coming from her lips as she does so._

_Hope is asleep by now, you’re certain of it, and you are far from achieving REM so you contemplate what you can do at three in the morning when most people are as close to dead as they will ever be without actually dying. You consider just taking (another) melatonin and calling it, and Heather O’Reilly always carries Ambien with her—you know this from your days at UNC together. There’s always a hot shower and just closing your eyes until either the alarm goes off or you fall asleep, and you know it would work because Hope sleeps with ear plugs in. Or you could break all the rules Pia clearly laid out during the team meeting after dinner—in your rooms by eleven o’clock, you don’t have to go to sleep but you can’t roam the halls or go out. And because you have never been the most logical decision maker, you choose to go with the last option. You slip into your favorite UNC sweatshirt—the one with the hole in the sleeve that HAO told you not to wear because “it’s like wearing a high school letterman’s jacket after you’ve graduated—those days are over, people”—and neglect shoes, slipping out the door with your room key before you can think better of it._

_You didn’t expect anyone to be awake at this hour, so you all but have a heart attack when you see her in the lounge area of the seventh floor of the hotel, dressed in leggings and a baggy hoodie with a faded Penn State logo across the chest. Her feet are bare, like yours, and she is curled up in a plasticky arm chair with her knees drawn up to her chest. She doesn’t notice you at first, but she looks wide awake. You aren’t that great with geography, but you know that three in New York means it’s around ten in the morning in Frankfurt. You wonder how long she’s been awake, and you wonder if you should turn around and slip back into yours and Hope’s room before you get the both of you in trouble, but then she turns at the slightest of movement from your direction and casts you a smile. You’re in too deep to go back now._

\- - - - - - - - - - - - - 

_Washington D.C. February 2011.  
_

The thing that Ashlyn finds most remarkable about the senior national team is their commitment to not only their country and the game, but also to one another. She learned very quickly that a place—a permanent place—on the roster is earned, not given, and the same can be said about a place in the family that is the United States Women National Soccer Team. Her first call up had come after the end of her senior season at the University of North Carolina, where she had played under Anson Dorrance—arguably the greatest coach in college soccer—for four seasons, five if you count redshirting. Having earned a scholarship to play for Anson, which was no easy feat considering the fact that UNC typically only gave full rides to members of the senior national team, she felt that a spot in camp was hers to keep. In under an hour with the team, she had been proven very wrong. While she knew who everyone on the team was—she’d played against some of them, and some either had been or still were her teammates at UNC—she was just another call up to them. If her first camp was a tryout, she had failed miserably.

Part of what still makes the team so fascinating to Ashlyn is how much of a family they are. She is not certain that she is a part of the family just yet—she’s still fairly new, and they already have their savior in Hope Solo—but she’ll be damned if she gets to the end of her life and these women have not become a part of her heart and she of theirs. They come from different places, different childhoods, different belief systems, different personalities, and they are still thick as thieves. She admires the immense amount of respect they all hold for their differences. They acknowledge them, and they sometimes talk about them, but they never let them interfere with the relationship they hold on and off the field. Lauren Cheney may be as in love with Jesus as they come, but Ashlyn had watched her come unglued on a man in a restaurant when he’d called Megan Rapinoe a “disgusting display of immorality” at team dinner. And Becky Sauerbrunn may have not known a whole lot about growing up in a broken home, but she would sit and listen for hours to Hope talk about her dad. Ashlyn finds it absolutely beautiful that so many different personalities and people can fit together like a puzzle piece.

That’s why it doesn’t make sense to Ashlyn when Ali Krieger requests to be her roommate the second she sees both their names on the roster for camp in March 2011. If there’s anybody who has no reason to question her spot in the family that is the women’s national team, it’s Ali Krieger. She’s impossible to hate. She’s cheerful, bright, a good listener, a hard worker, and sometimes a little too talkative, but it’s endearing. Granted, she’s a night owl, probably unable to adjust from Germany to the United States in such a short amount of time, and she’s pretty messy, but she’s otherwise probably the perfect roommate. In fact, Ashlyn is sure that the second camp rosters are released Pia’s phone probably starts ringing with girls—veterans at that—hoping to be paired with Ali for the upcoming week or two. She’s sitting in her kitchen in Washington eating peanut butter straight from the jar and watching a CSI marathon when her cellphone rings and Pia’s name appears on the screen.

“Pia?”

Ashlyn listens patiently for the husky Swedish accent to come through the phone line. “Ashlyn, yes, hello.” Slightly uncomfortably, Pia clears her throat. “I take it you’ve seen the full roster announcement for this month’s camp and Algarve Cup?”

She nods quickly before realizing Pia can’t see her. “Yes ma’am, yes, I saw the list right after you called me. Thank you.”

“Yes, well, I suppose congratulations are in order.” Pia pauses, and Ashlyn waits for the _congrats! _she’s sure will follow, but instead, Pia clears her throat again and continues on without another word of her call up. “Then I take it you’ve seen that Ali Krieger will be joining us from Germany again, in preparation for the World Cup.”__

It’s a statement, not a question, and it makes Ashlyn feel as uncomfortable as Pia sounds. She feels a heat burning in the bottom of her belly and prays that Pia hasn’t picked up on her little crush like it seems everyone else has.

When Ashlyn doesn’t answer, Pia powers on. “Well, something strange has happened. I normally let Abby and Christie make rooming arrangements—I don’t know who gets along and who has a problem with who and whatnot—but today I got a call from Ali Krieger.”

Ashlyn swallows hard. “Oh?”

“Yes, and she was requesting her roommate for Portugal.”

“Oh?” (It seems that two-letter words are Ashlyn’s filler vocabulary—oh and um and so and er.)

Pia hesitates only for a few moments before saying in a confused, slightly amused voice, “She requested you.”

It’s in that moment that Ashlyn feels she might just joke on the glob of peanut better at the back of her throat. She nearly coughs, nearly falls off the bar stool she’s atop, nearly yells _WHAT??? _Instead, she takes a few seconds to compose herself before she makes sure she heard Pia correctly. “Ali wants to be my roommate?”__

“Yup.”

“Are you—is she…is she sure?”

Now Pia sounds like she’s running out of time, as if she’s got more people to call. (She’s probably about to call twenty disappointed women and let them know that Ali already has a roommate and it’s not any of them.) “I’d assume she’s sure; the roster was only just released when she called me all breathless and said, ‘I’d like to room with Ashlyn Harris if that’s okay with you.’ And of course it’s okay with me, so long as you’re able to follow the rules.”

Ashlyn thinks faintly back to February in New York when Pia caught her and Ali laughing in the hallway at four-fifteen in the morning and consequently had them run extra lines at practice later in the day. “Yes ma’am, we can—I mean, I can—follow the rules. Ma’am. Yes.”

“Good.” There is another uncomfortably long pause, and Ashlyn considers saying goodbye to save Pia from the awkwardness. “Well then I guess I can look forward to seeing you next week?”

“Yes, I guess you can.” Ashlyn figures that “looking forward to seeing you” might be the closest she ever gets to a compliment from Pia and decides to take it. “I’ll see you then.”

Before any more painfully awkward silences can ensue, Pia has ended the call and Ashlyn is left staring at her grimy iPhone screen and wondering what the hell is going on.


	3. favors.

_Frankfurt, Germany. February 2011._

An ocean and seven time zones away, the sun glows orange as it dips behind the towers and bridges of Frankfurt. From the edge of the pitch, Ali watches as the light begins to fade from orange to pink to violet to dusk. The stadium lights have long since flickered on, casting the long shadows of Nadine Angerer’s legs across the turf as she saves penalty kicks fired at her by Svenja Huth and Sandra Smisek. Still, Ali sits atop a Nike soccer ball on the edge of the pitch, running turf pellets through her fingers and staring nervously at her phone. Practice ended hours ago, but the group remains on the pitch. Something connects them all, keeps them working long after they are expected to quit and go home. Ali isn’t entirely sure, even knowing these girls for four years, but she’s certain it has something to do with a drive to win and an inability to lose.

The air is past cool—it’s biting now, with a swift breeze occasionally picking up and sending goosebumps up and down Ali’s legs and arms. After playing overseas for so long, she has gotten used to springtime in Germany. The highs are in the low 50s, and after the sun goes down it can drop below freezing in a matter of minutes. There are still days when her heart becomes heavy and her soul begins to ache for home, for cherry blossoms in Washington D.C. and blue skies across the Virginia horizon, but she’d be lying if she said that Germany had not started to feel like home as well. After all, she tells herself often, home is not a place, and “home” for Ali has become contingent upon the presence of a soccer field, a steaming cup of coffee in the mornings, and Rikki and Maudie.

Another gust of wind has Ali clenching her teeth and wrapping the sleeves of her Nike warmup jacket tighter around her arms. She firmly pulls her beanie down further over her ears and drags the back of her hand over her running nose. The cold has never stopped them before; it certainly isn’t going to stop them now. Sandra is in front of her, a smile playing on her lips and her hands outstretched as an offer to help her up. Ali returns the grin gratefully, if not a bit distractedly, and stands, nudging her phone with her foot once more before kicking it over so the screen is face-down on the turf.

“Sie gut?” she asks quietly, nudging her hip into Ali as they walk onto the pitch side-by-side.

“Ja,” Ali nods, this time offering her friend a more convincing smile. “Just cold,” she finishes in English.

With that, she swings her arms back and forth to warm her muscles up and breaks into a jog, sending a ball straight toward Nadine. It hits her square in the chest as her arms snap around the ball securely, the impact knocking her flat to her back. They all share a laugh.

“Yeah, send it to me going Mach 80!” Nadine jokes as she rolls the ball back toward the 18.

Ali tries to throw herself into the game she’s loved since she was young, sliding cleanly into tackles and volleying the ball away from Nadine’s grasp off a shot from Svenja. There’s never been a time she can remember that one-touch or even keep-away or 2v2 hasn’t cleared her mind, made her feel refreshed and allowed her to decompress, but she’s playing distracted, and they can all tell. Her reactions are a hair slower than normal, and the balls she chips are hard and almost lethal. They all laugh nervously and blame it on the cold, on jet lag, on the upcoming World Cup. She knows they aren’t ignoring it and won’t brush it under the rug—those Germans never do—and she’ll certainly hear more about it at practice tomorrow, but for now she is grateful that they let her be and don’t interrogate her.

What little composure Ali had remaining goes flying out the window when she hears her phone begin to play Firework by Katy Perry from across the field. The pass Sandra had lobbed her way sails straight over her head as she sprints to the edge of the pitch, sliding onto the clay track and saving the call seconds before voicemail would have picked up.

“Ali?”

Breathless, Ali smiles at the sound of Pia’s low accent. “Pia!”

“I did that little favor you asked me to do.”

A twinge of guilt sears in Ali’s belly for a few seconds. She should have just let it be, and Abby and Christie would have put her with Mittsy or Boxxy or Cheney. Roommate requests aren’t really something Pia’s particularly fond of, but Ali is pretty certain that Pia has no knowledge of Ashlyn Harris’s little crush.

“You did?” She tries to act surprised, but she knows that no matter how disconnected and unattached Pia seems from the team, she loves Ali and will do whatever she asks her to do.

“Yeah, I did. And I told her that as long as you follow the rules, there are no problems with the two of you sharing a room at the Algarve Cup.”

It takes all of her self-control for Ali to not cheer out loud. She settles for a fist pump and skip from the clay of the track. “Thank you so much, Pia. I swear we won’t break the rules this time. I won’t let you down.”

Pia is uninterested in calling just to chat. “I’ll see you soon, Ali.”

With the smile still on her face, Ali bites her lip and ends the call. She almost lets out a whoop of approval from the sidelines but opts to do a victory dance instead. Her teammates can’t ignore this one.

“Why are we celebrating, Kriegy?” Nadine shouts from between the goal posts, already pulling off her ‘keeper gloves and heading to join her by the bench.

Ali is already gathering her things up, slipping out of her cleats before they are untied and shoving them into her Nike drawstring bag while simultaneously zipping her duffle bag up and grabbing her car keys from the side pouch. “Just a small national team camp triumph.” She doesn’t know why she’s so happy, if she’s being honest. She only just met Ashlyn Harris, but there was something completely interesting and alluring about her. Not that Ali would ever think of doing anything with the new blonde call up. Not when she has her own two beautiful blondes to go home to. Still, the thought of sharing a room with the sharp-tongued, carefree new goalkeeper sets a dangerous fire in Ali’s chest. She heads off to her car with a sparkle in her eye and a skip in her step that her friends haven’t seen in quite some time.

\- - - - - - - - - - - - - 

_New York, New York. December 2010._

_You try to ignore the heat in your abdomen as Ali smiles at you—that 1000-watt, electrifying grin. She tells you to sit down and pats the chair identical to her own. You look around cautiously for any sign of Pia before you do so, and she laughs. Your heart flutters and you’re afraid you have lost the ability to speak._

_“Everyone else is asleep,” she reassures you, still grinning and patting the chair. “Pia will never know that we’re up.”_

_And despite what you know you should do, you sit down. You sit down and weakly smile, not your usual I’m-Ashlyn-Harris-and-I’m-just-happy-to-be-alive smile either…a shy and slightly meek grin that probably looks more like you’re getting in trouble and trying not to find it humorous. Again, you notice her long fingers curled around her ankles and her hair as it sweeps the side of her neck. This time, she seems to brazenly play into your obvious infatuation._

_“I look better naked,” she deadpans, and you feel your jaw drop and your face grow hot. Her face remains serious for another few seconds, and you try to remain calm and collected so she won’t see how much she has caught you off-guard again. And then she laughs, and though the chord has been resolved the fire remains in your stomach because that sound—that sweet, rumbling laughter—is still intoxicating._

_“That was a joke,” she clarifies, in case you didn’t get it._

_Suddenly, you seem to have your confidence back. “Figured,” you answer and give her the once-over, “that you look better clothed.”_

_You’re walking a line—a tightrope across the Grand Canyon for all you know—and you’re flirting shamelessly with danger and with love. It feels both exhilarating and terrifying. For one, you know she’s taken. Not only did Mittsy let you know loud and clear that Ali has a girlfriend, you broke your best friend Whitney’s rules of crushing on someone who is taken—don’t stalk their social media accounts—and saw countless pictures of her with a beautiful supermodel blonde who wears skimpy dresses and curls her hair perfectly every time. And you know that you are bad with things like this. While some would peg you for a player, you haven’t had a girlfriend since college, and you aren’t a fan of one night stands. Things get too dirty or too emotional, and someone always gets hurt. For these reasons, it’s been years since you’ve even been kissed. Yet you find yourself balancing on a cable and ignoring everything that is telling you this is a bad idea._

_“Oh, is that why you’ve been undressing me with your eyes?” she banters, her eyebrows raised amusedly, and you try not to let your own amusement show._

_“No, I just have a staring problem,” you shoot back smartly, and this time she’s taken aback._

_She nods slowly, knowing she’s been beat. “Fair enough, Ashlyn Harris.”_

_You wonder if you should call her Ali or Krieger or Kriegs or Kriegy like your teammates do, but they all sound too forced. “Are you a sore loser, Alex?”_

_Alex? Where did that come from? You’ve known her for less than twelve hours. That’s probably a pet name her family uses. And you are certainly not family._

_But she just presses her lips into that thin little line again and crosses her arms over the Penn State logo on her chest. “I am a sore loser, actually. You probably don’t want to beat me again.”_

_You were never one to back down from a challenge, so you ask her to play Truth or Dare. You don’t know why you are surprised, but right off the bat she boldly chooses a dare. Part of you considers warming her up before you jump all in with the dare factor, but she warns you against going easy on her. And those words—don’t go easy on me—make your core throb and your eyes roll dramatically, even out of context. So you dare her to ding-dong-ditch Pia, and three seconds after she knocks loudly on Pia’s hotel room door you are both tumbling into the elevator she screeched for a businessman to hold for you. From where you are hidden, the “hold” button held open on the elevator just long enough for you to see Pia sticking her head out the door, squinting against the light and wearing only boxer shorts and a “wife beater” as she searches for the culprit._

_The second the elevator starts to move, you both burst out laughing, and you high-five each other. You don’t know what this is—blatant flirting, sure, but you are starting to feel like it wouldn’t be so bad to be “just friends” with Ali Krieger._

\- - - - - - - - - - - - - 

_Frankfurt, Germany. February 2011._

The door to the flat is unlocked when Ali tries the knob, and she pushes it open quietly, careful not to wake the two sleeping beauties inside. It’s a full moon, and she can’t help but pause by the front door for a few moments to enjoy the silver glow cast over the Main River and Iron Bridge (Eiserner Steg). Her heart feels full. When she was trying to find a place to live in Germany four years ago—a new college graduate who had never spent more than a few weeks away from her mom at a time and decided on the flip of a dime to move overseas to play soccer without having ever spoken even a word of German—she had struggled. It seemed that everyone she came across didn’t know a lick of English, and she didn’t have any family or friends in Frankfurt—didn’t have anything but a contract with FFC Frankfurt and a love of the game. Finding Nadine, Svenja, and Sandra had been the best thing she could have done. Not only were they her teammates, they actually spoke English. Of course, that didn’t help Ali too much as they forced her to take German lessons and wouldn’t speak English around her, but they were the ones who took her housing requirements (safe, not too far from the pitch, a beautiful view) and ran with it, finding her the perfect two-bedroom flat overlooking the river.

Now, Ali thinks, her favorite thing about the flat is who she shares it with.

She cautiously drops her duffle in the entryway as she turns the lock behind her. The quiet thud on the old hardwood floor fills her chest with a gentle reverb—she sighs contently. It sounds like home. Holding onto the small table by the front door for balance, Ali slips off her Nike sneakers and shrugs out of her jacket. The floor is cold against her slightly damp socks—a downside to playing in early March, when snow still falls occasionally and burdens the fields—and she feels a shiver run down her spine. Across the room, the curtains are drawn back and silvery light floods the white shaggy rug. In the fireplace, embers still hiss and crackle as they glow orange and burn blue. Ali smiles softly—Rikki must have tried to wait up for her again. On the kitchen counter, an apfelstrudel sits on a blue china plate. Beside it, a note is scrawled in Rikki’s tell-tale loopy handwriting.

_Ali,_  
_Hier ist eine kleine Freude für sie. Maudie und ich es gebacken nach dem Abendessen. Wir lieben sie!  
-xoxo Rik_

She can’t help but nibble at the pastry as she reads, “Ali, here is a pastry for you. Maudie and I baked it after supper. We love you!” Once again, her heart swells. She eats half of the apple strudel, covers the rest back up, and sticks it on top of the fridge so Maudie won’t try to sneak it for breakfast.

Her exhaustion is starting to catch up with her. She takes a quick drink of whatever’s closest—just her luck, it’s a swig of vodka—and then fills a glass of water to take to bed. After a hot shower, she changes into into a pair of leggings and her Penn State hoodie, and on second thought adds wool socks. Rikki’s feet are always freezing at night, and Ali needs all the help she can get to warm up. She’s too tired to even blow dry her hair, but she won’t let a night pass without slipping into Maudie’s room and telling her goodnight.

Inside the smaller of the two rooms in Ali’s flat, the small blonde sleeps in her daybed, the curtains allowing in a sliver of moonlight that bathes her delicate features and glistens on her milky skin. Ali feels her heartbeat pick up at the sight of just how healthy she looks, and she can’t help but be reminded of what she looked like when she first came with Rikki to live with Ali. She was small for her age anyway, but she had looked gaunt and her face was drawn all the time. Her green eyes were sunken and blank, and Ali had been able to count all of her ribs. Now she is happy and strong. Her bones finally have some meat on them. She smiles all the time—laughs, even, and Ali’s not sure there’s a more beautiful sound in the whole world—and her eyes have light in them again. She’s still thin, but she eats like a horse and has more energy than the Tasmanian devil. So much has changed in her in just a few months’ time.

When Ali met Rikki by fate that one night, it had been the “charitable thing to do” by inviting her to stay at her flat for a few days. The supermodel had been beaten and bruised by some men on the street, and after further investigation (Ali’s fluency in German coming in a lot of handy here) she learned that Rikki didn’t have a job. Her modeling agency had gone under, leaving her with no choice but to turn to the streets to provide for herself and Maudie. Ali felt it was incumbent upon her to take care of her new friend. A few days turned into a few months, and suddenly Ali found herself in love and looking forward to coming home to the two blondes who held her heart. She hadn’t thought about the day that Maudie would leap into her arms after practice and scream, “Muvver!!! You’re home!!!” She hadn’t thought about taking in a two-year-old when she saw the battered woman broken down near the bridge on a cold night. And she certainly hadn’t thought about a future with a supermodel and her young daughter. It’s funny, Ali thinks, how these things work.

Maudie sleeps beneath a quilt that was Ali’s growing up. It’s worn now, the pinks and reds and yellows fading and the poppy flower pattern running onto the white fabric. Maudie holds one corner clutched to her rosy cheeks as she dreams. At her feet rest a giant stuffed dog—Beethoven, she’s named him, which is quite a mouthful for one not yet three years old—and a doll that she calls Fritz. When Ali scoots Beethoven over so she can sit at the foot of Maudie’s bed, the tiny girl stirs lightly in her sleep and squints at her.

A smile immediately lights her face. “Hallo, Mama!”

“Schlafen sie gut, liebling,” Ali returns softly, stroking the cornsilk hair that is matted to Maudie’s forehead.

_Yes, darling, sleep tight, _she repeats in her head as she closes the door quietly and slips back to her own room, where her other favorite blonde sleeps beneath a white down comforter. She snuggles into Rikki’s back and breathes in the scent of her clean shampoo, her chest filling with a warm wave of emotion. Rikki scoots closer to her in her sleep, and Ali presses a kiss to her hair.__

One text message comes in as Ali turns on her alarm for the next morning.

_Hey roommate. Can’t wait to see you soon :)_

Ali falls asleep with a pit of guilt in her belly for reasons she doesn’t quite understand.


	4. reunited and it feels so...

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> So begins March camp and the Algarve Cup.

_Washington, D.C., and Los Angeles, California. March 2011._

Ashlyn’s flight leaves from Washington D.C. for California at six in the morning, or what she considers to be the hour of death. It’s only four when she drags herself out of bed and feels the exhaustion deep in her bones. _I should have gone to sleep earlier, _she says to herself as she stumbles toward the shower. And she knows it’s the truth. The problem is, someone over at Netflix thought it would be a brilliant idea to put the new season of Grey’s Anatomy up, and Ashlyn has never been one to stop after “just one more episode” so she’d ended up crashing at about 1. Every part of her body hates her for it, and she knows she’ll be a grouch all of camp—all of her time with Ali—if she doesn’t sleep on the plane.__

Of course, it’s just her luck that American Airlines plops her down in the middle seat of a cross-country flight, smack between an obese man who smells like onions, mouth breathes, and sweats profusely for the last leg of the trip and the screaming toddler whose own mother puts in headphones to tune him out. If not for the forty-eight hour rule that Pia has in place, Ashlyn might have exited the plane incoherently drunk. It’s now 8 in the morning in California—11 in D.C., she reminds herself when her stomach growls—and she’s going on three hours of sleep, four cups of coffee, and five hours of the worst travel experience of her life. Her first stop after she hits the baggage carousel is the nearest Starbucks kiosk.

National team players normally arrive in waves of five or six at a time depending on where they’re coming from. Ashlyn is the first to land in California, closely followed by Cheney and Amy LePeilbet in from Boston and Nicole Barnhart and Amy Rodriguez from Philadelphia. They wait in front of the baggage carousel for a few more minutes while they wait to hear back from Pia as to if they’re missing anyone who’s supposed to catch the first van to the hotel. The conversation is kind but slightly tense—they all know that this camp and the impending Algarve Tournament will determine Pia’s World Cup roster, and though Ashlyn is certain they’ll all make it, she’s nervous about her own spot on the team. Still, she joins in on their friendly banter. The WPS season is in full swing, and they talk about the league as well as family and even things like the weather.

Right as Cheney checks her phone to see if Pia has responded to her text message yet, Ali Krieger crashes up behind them dramatically. Her hair is tossed into a messy, effortlessly glamorous ponytail atop her head, and her expensive sunglasses are perched on the bridge of her nose. She’s dressed in black ripped skinny jeans, a baggy cream-colored sweater over a denim button-up, and cream flats that Ashlyn is fairly certain cost more than a month’s rent for her apartment in D.C. She’s suddenly self-conscious of her Nike joggers and the black hoodie tied around her waist, even though it’s what her teammates are wearing as well. There’s an iced coffee in Ali’s Starbucks cup, and a blush-colored scarf is looped around her neck. Ashlyn gulps and refrains from telling her that it’s California and she’ll want to lose the overwear soon.

If Ali looks glamorous, the blonde behind her looks like she’s stepped straight from a magazine. She’s tall, naturally tan, and supermodel thin with curves in all the right places. There’s an expensive tote bag tossed casually over one white-tee-shirt clad shoulder, and the distressed denim on her legs probably sold for around $300. (Ashlyn wants to believe that she would never pay that much for a pair of jeans, but this woman makes them look so good that she is strongly considering it.) An army-green cargo jacket is tied loosely around her hips, and her feet are slipped into strappy gold sandals that Ashlyn knows she saw Angelina Jolie wearing in People Magazine last week. Her hair hangs in loose waves, and from the red of her lipstick Ashlyn immediately knows she’s the woman from Ali’s Instagram feed.

The toddler balanced on Ali’s hip is every bit as well-dressed as her mother. For a beat, Ashlyn is jealous—how in the hell is a two-year-old prettier than her?!—before she calms herself down. The child’s silky white-blonde hair is drawn into a stylish bun that Ashlyn knows is Ali’s doing—she fixes her hair like that for most games—and she’s wearing a faded red tee-shirt dress with white Converse sneakers. There’s a denim jacket around her shoulders with the sleeves rolled up to her elbows. A giant stuffed puppy hangs in her arms and drags the ground. It doesn’t take Ashlyn more than a few seconds to put two and two together—this is Ali’s girlfriend’s daughter, already more genetically blessed than most will ever be.

“Good morning!” Ali greets cheerily.

All of Ashlyn’s jealousy and indignation is gone the second she hears those words. After spending a few weeks back in Germany, the slight lilt in Ali’s voice is more noticeable than ever, and her accent is soft, somewhere between her native Virginian drawl and the gentle lull in her words she’s picked up from her second language. She sends a smile Ashlyn’s way, and she feels her heart flutter as it always does around this beautiful and completely unavailable woman. It takes her less time than normal to return the smile.

“Good morning to you too, Alex.”

If Cheney, A-Rod, LePeilbet, or Barnie pick up on the little name drop, none of them say so.

“Is there room in the van for two more?” Ali asks as the model comes to her side and takes the sleepy toddler. “Rikki has a shoot in Los Angeles later this week with Burberry, so we all just flew in together. Maudie can sit in my lap if she needs to.”

That’s how it happens that, fifteen minutes later, Ashlyn is crushed against the cupholder of a minivan with Ali’s girlfriend’s kid in her hip pocket and Ali smiling nonchalantly on her other side. She wants to be mad, really—disappointed, at least—but the kid is actually super cute and polite, and Rikki—the model or the girlfriend or whatever—has been nothing but kind and polite and slightly charming. In fact, Ashlyn is finding it hard to be anything but entertained by the two-year-old’s stories. (She’s not sure if it’s because the stories are actually funny or if it’s because of the way Ali laughs every time Maudie breaks into a small grin next to her.) It would be easier to stop “crushing” on Ali now, while she can still stand the girlfriend and tolerate the girlfriend’s two-year-old clone, but Ashlyn would rather continue to be a glutton for punishment.

They drop Maudie and Rikki off at a separate hotel—“It’s closer to the shoot in West Hollywood,” Ali explains after she kisses them both goodbye and promises to call every night—and continue on to their own reservations. None of them bring up the fact that Maudie calls her Mama, and only Cheney asks about how Ali feels being stuck with a kid. (Ali becomes defensive and corrects her—she is not “stuck,” she is “lucky.”) And Ashlyn tries to ignore the fact that, now that the backseat is a little less crowded, hers and Ali’s wrists continue to bump together. She wonders if Ali feels the same tingle and shoot of electricity every time their bare skin connects and then pushes it out of her mind. Ali’s girlfriend and daughter are here, and that means that Ashlyn is definitely not a possibility in Ali’s life any time soon as anything other than a really good friend. Again, she makes herself believe that being Ali’s friend is all she wants.

\- - - - - - - - - - - - - 

“Which bed do you want?”

Ali looks up absentmindedly from her phone and grazes her eyes over the hotel room. “Oh, it doesn’t matter to me,” she sighs, already tossing her bags onto the bed closest to the door and falling dramatically onto the white comforter. “You choose.”

Ashlyn smiles, and Ali tries to ignore the way it sends a wave of heat through her chest. “I guess I’ll take this one.”

With that, she begins to shove Ali playfully off the bed and onto the floor. Ali squeals her protest and wriggles out of reach to escape Ashlyn’s hands, which are now dangerously close to tickling her. “This one’s mine! I chose!” she giggles in a high-pitched voice, now firmly pinned beneath Ashlyn’s strong arms. From this position, she can see clearly the hazel of Ashlyn’s eyes and the dimples in her cheeks. Her lips are soft and pink, and she can smell Dr. Pepper chapstick on her breath. She sucks in a sharp breath and averts her eyes before she decides that kissing Ashlyn wouldn’t be that bad of a mistake to make.

It seems that Ashlyn has realized the closeness of their situation as well. She stands and lets Ali up, worry suddenly flickering in her eyes as they dart between Ali and the door. “Sorry.”

“You’re pretty fast,” Ali says, ignoring any signs of awkwardness like she always does, “for a goalkeeper.”

The comment reassures Ashlyn that no harm came from the flirty exchange. Still, it’s more than what she would normally push, especially considering Ali is in a committed relationship, and the heat doesn’t leave her face for a few more seconds.

“Reunited and it feels so good,” Ali begins to sing as she gets up from the bed and unzips her suitcase. She pulls out the same pair of Nike joggers and USWNT tee shirt that Ashlyn is wearing and weighs her options. The fairly level-headed part of her brain tells her to change in the restroom since she is obviously fascinated by (if not attracted to) Ashlyn Harris, but her heart impulsively insists that she is comfortable with her body, and teammates are semi-naked in front of each other all the time so if she can’t handle Ashlyn seeing her in an undressed state now she won’t be able to handle it in the locker room.

Ali slips her sweater over her head to expose her taut abs and lacy black bra. She feels the temperature in the room instantly escalate ten degrees and does her best to ignore the sharp inhale from Ashlyn’s direction. Instead, she continues to sing, “Reunited and it feels so good! Reunited and it feels so—“

Before she can finish the last word, the hotel room door slams shut so hard she is sure that the walls shake. All she catches of Ashlyn is the flash of blonde hair crammed beneath the flatbill cap she’s wearing.

She has made a very poor choice.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey everyone! So clearly, I'm back at least for a bit. Thank you all for the comments so far! I know the chapters are shorter, but I'm hoping that shorter chapters mean I'll be able to update more frequently. I'm a bit of a perfectionist, so if I try to squeeze too much in it will take me forever to get one chapter written. My last fic averaged around 6 or 7 thousand words a chapter; this is more like 1500-3000. There's a chance the chapters will get longer as I tend to be a bit long-winded. I hope you guys like where this is headed!


	5. short end of the stick.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Mittsy and Hope decide that Ali and Ashlyn cannot cause team drama. Guess who has to talk to Ashlyn...

_Los Angeles, California. March 2011._

Hope finds Ashlyn down the road at the beach, sitting in the sand with her sunglasses on and her hat crammed down to shade her eyes from the sun and from—she suspects—tears that might betray her. It’s nearly lunch time, day two of camp, and the heat is beating down on all the beachgoers with humidity that seems to make the air hard to breathe. But the day before, Ali had come sprinting into the room Hope shared with Mittsy, and there was panicky doubt in her eyes and regret dripping from her voice. And because Mittsy loved drama and Hope hated it, and both knew that Pia would not tolerate it on her team, they’d spent most of that night making a list of names and crossing them off—Barnie was too quiet; Jill Loyden was too curt; Buehler’s too factual; Stephanie Cox and LeP are too private; it wasn’t like Christie or Becky would ever even think about contributing to drama even to solve it; Tobin, A-Rod, Cheney, and Alex are too young and too new; Boxxy, Lori Lindsey, Carli, and HAO were clueless; Abby can’t criticize anything without making it a lecture; Pinoe is too crude. The only names left on the list by midnight were theirs. Now Hope finds herself standing on the beach trying to solve a problem they know nothing about.

They had played rock-paper-scissors to see who had to talk to Ashlyn, and Hope had lost fair and square, two out of three. Part of her still thinks she drew the short end of the stick. Mittsy loves Ali like they’re sisters. They share clothes and shoes and purses and makeup. Ali has been with the team for a while now, and she’s easy to talk to—funny, sweet, opinionated, sometimes loud, and easy to make laugh. Ashlyn is still new, in limbo between being a solid number 3 GK and being too unsure of herself to ever make it much higher in the rankings. In the months Hope has known her, she still can’t say that she knows her. She seems like she’s trying not to intrude too much on the team, like she knows she’s temporary and doesn’t want to get too close to anyone. It’s a far cry from what all the UNC girls had told her about the young goalkeeper—they’d all made her out to be loud…sometimes inappropriately funny…an expert advice-giver…confident on the pitch…talkative. Hope almost wishes she could make Ashlyn angry, because at least then she’d say more than “thanks” or “I’ll work on it” or “okay.”

For a moment, Hope pictures Ali and Mittsy enjoying their day off at a little cafe on the boardwalk, wearing kitten heels and exchanging lipstick shades while waiting for their dainty little sandwiches to arrive. Somewhere between sips of mimosas, Mittsy would casually slip it into conversation — “so what’s all the drama about, Kriegy?” — and Ali would open up to her like they had grown up together. Then, after Mitts was certain that everything was fine and there would be no more drama, they would have a short cry until both realized they were ruining their makeup and they’d skip off to the Kate Spade boutique on Huntington Beach. Her stomach twists in disgust again. Of course Mittsy won rock-paper-scissors. Of course Mittsy gets to talk to Ali. Of course Hope is left standing there dumbly with no clue how to bring this up to someone she barely knows.

She finally decides to go with something she and Ashlyn both seem to be rather comfortable with, and that’s silence. She has watched the quiet way Ashlyn studies her movements in training, calculated and focused, occasionally nodding to herself or muttering something under her breath. Hope may not have heard much from her, but at least she knows one thing for certain—Ashlyn is a deep thinker, probably analyzes everything way too much. If Hope’s assumptions are right — and she tries not to get too cocky, but she’s always right — then Ashlyn is a lot like her. Talented, almost unfairly so. Perceptive. Strong. Highly intelligent. Hot-tempered. Observant. And just enough uncertainty in her personal life that she has a tendency to come off as aloof and detached, self-absorbed and distant.

It doesn’t feel too awkward, sitting beside Ashlyn in the sand as they both squint out over the tide at the surfers. Hope knows nothing about surfing or the swell or how to catch a wave, but one look at Ashlyn’s snapback and board shorts tell her that she does, so she tries to be casual as she brings it up.

“Looks like the water’s pretty good today,” she says softly. Her eyes don’t leave the horizon though she is all but blinded by the sunlight reflecting off the water.

Ashlyn looks at her in surprise for half an instant before she is suddenly underwhelmed again. “It’s actually not. The wind isn’t blowing right. There are probably some pretty nasty rip currents just offshore that you don’t want to get caught in.”

Hope stares at her again, praying she doesn’t pick up on just how off-guard she already is. She sifts sand between her fingers for a few seconds and realizes just how little she really knows about Ashlyn. “I don’t know anything about surfing, if you can’t tell.”

“Yeah.”

The silence sits between the two ‘keepers again. It settles like a blanket around Hope’s shoulders, and she wishes it could stay like this. She’s an introvert by all definition, and confrontation is totally not her thing. Silence she can deal with. Talking too much or listening feels overwhelming and can bring on a wave of anxiety. Hope’s no good with large crowds or overbearing people.

“I guess I really don’t know that much about you either,” Hope finally confesses when the silence starts to feel too heavy. She doesn’t want to launch into a confrontation too soon, and she really doesn’t want her to jump into defense before she even really knows her.

Ashlyn shrugs and digs her toes deeper into the wet sand. “There’s not really that much to know. I played for Anson, I have bad luck, and now I’m here trying to make the World Cup roster.”

“That’s a start, I guess. I guess I knew that you played for Anson, and you’re obviously here to one day steal my spot as starting goalkeeper for the national team. But I have to say, I don’t believe in luck. I think we make our own luck. It’s science, really. Does the universe behave randomly, or is there such thing as fate? Personally, I think everything happens for a reason. There is no such thing as coincidence or luck or chance. What comes to be was always meant to be.”

She looks up at the sun momentarily as it beats down upon them and gazes back to her feet in thought. If what Hope says is true, then nothing is random and nothing is left up in the air—no injury, no friendship, no seemingly meaningless interaction. “I’d like to believe that’s true, that it’s predestination or God or some other force of certainty, but it’s kind of hard to think that everything shitty that happens isn’t just some poor turn of the wind.”

Hope leans back on her elbows in the sand and lets her head hang back. “This might be an intense first real conversation to have. I mean, I’m pretty bad with these things, but I was thinking we’d start out with something simple, like where you’re from and what you like to do. And later maybe we could talk about Ali Krieger.” She holds her breath, hoping that it’s not too blunt or rough around the edges.

“Does Hope Solo actually want to get to know her lowly fourth string GK?” Ashlyn sounds amused, and it knocks Hope back onto her path.

She considers this for a moment. If she truly listens to what Ashlyn has to say, she’s going to seem soft. If she sits here for over ten minutes while simply hearing her speak, she’s going to be as jaded as Pia. So she nods. “Yeah, I do.”

“Well,” Ashlyn takes a deep breath, “I’m from Satellite Beach, Florida. I grew up in a man’s world trying to make it mine. I played soccer, surfed, skateboarded, tried to outshine all the guys. Learned to fight in a skate park. I love my hometown, I do, but it’ll always be too small for my dreams. I called Anson when I was in high school and told him that I knew he only gave full rides to full time national team members, but I knew I had to get out of there and I knew I had to play for him if I wanted a shot at this, and I told him that my parents were in no position to help pay for my school. And he said he would figure something out. I tore both my ACLs before my time there was over and also set a few school records. Sexuality was never really anything I thought about. I just knew that I didn’t want to hang out with other girls when I was younger, and I knew that I never looked at guys the way they did. Which I guess leads us to Ali Krieger.”

Hope is impressed. She’s always impressed when people don’t ramble on about themselves for hours. It’s been maybe three minutes, and she knows more about Ashlyn Harris than she does about some of the women she’s been playing with for years. Granted, this could just be because Hope is observant, and the fact that Ash didn’t talk too much about herself says more than what she did. “Ali Krieger is a devil.”

A shocked grin appears on Ashlyn’s face. “A devil, huh?”

“A very well-dressed, educated, extroverted, charming, likable, talented devil.” Hope pauses. “I can see why you like her.”

Ashlyn doesn’t speak for another second or two, taken by Hope’s directness. It shouldn’t come off as a surprise, but she isn’t sure how to respond. Finally, she just grins helplessly. “That obvious, huh?”

“Let’s just say that she likes you too.”

“Oh.”

“And nobody around here can keep a secret. Except me. I can keep a secret.” Ashlyn doesn’t doubt for one minute that Hope’s secrets are locked up tighter than the United States Armory. “I have known Ali for a long time. She’s everything you think she is, Harris, but she didn’t hang the moon and she doesn’t know what she wants in life. I’ve watched her pretty closely—that’s what the backline does, we look out for one another—and she’s flighty. She doesn’t know what real love is. She was with a girl who made her think that the whole world revolved around the two of them, and when that girl left Ali was all but dead. And then there was a man, a nice guy who made people feel better for a living and was pretty damn good at it, who bought her flowers and took her out to dinner and breathed stars into her eyes. The day he slipped away quietly in his sleep was the day Ali stopped thinking that she got a happy ending.”

Hope hesitates, because the way Ashlyn’s breath hitches at even the mention of Ali is enough to make her retract all her earlier statements and scream _go get your girl!!!!! _Yet she has seen how belief can kill a person without even trying simply by making them think they have a chance when all that is waiting is disappointment, and she feels strangely protective of Ashlyn. “She’s a good person, Ashlyn; she really is. But while she may emanate happiness, she’s not had it easy. Love’s been a war for her, and she can’t give you what you want her to give. I don’t want to see you get distracted and lose your momentum because of Ali Krieger. Sure, you deserve to be happy, but you won’t get that with her. Whatever’s going on between you two — whatever you want to be going on — needs to stop. I say this with your best interests in mind.”__

Ashlyn’s answer is so small that Hope has to strain to hear her. “I know. But how do you let go of something that was never yours to begin with?”


	6. apologies.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> ...but who really "drew the short end of the stick?"

_Los Angeles, California. March 2011._

Mitts is starting to think that she drew the short end of the stick when it came to confronting Ali about whatever the hell was going on with Ashlyn.

She thought she could take a more direct approach with Ali. They’d been friends for several years now, roommates several times, and had developed a special bond and friendship. It wasn’t so much that Ali was scared of Mittsy — everyone was on the pitch — but more that they both admired the hell out of each other on and off the field. Not only that, but each held a deep amount of respect for their relationship. If there is anything Heather Mitts has learned about Ali Krieger over the course of their friendship, it’s that the younger woman has one hell of a stubborn streak — as in, she might be the most hard-headed person she’s ever met. Asking Ali about something that may or may not have been actually happening sounds like a good, easy way to get her to shut down emotionally and never talk to her again.

As most things go for Heather Mitts, her plan of taking Ali out for lunch and shopping is near perfect. She’s executed everything flawlessly thus far. Ali chose a small, dainty sandwich shop on Huntington Beach where they serves mimosas for free all morning, and with Mittsy’s promise of hitting the Kate Spade shop after they eat, all the minor things are falling into place. She keeps a tally of how many times Ashlyn is mentioned in conversation as opposed to Rikki and Maudie, and the number is surprising but not unexpectedly so. Pleased, she sticks to her plan and continues to sip her mimosa, allowing Ali to bring Ashlyn into the conversation as much as she would like. Heather is just starting to think that this couldn’t go any better if it had been scripted when she drops the ball.

“So you and Ashlyn, huh?” she says with slight amusement in her voice as she stares at Ali from over the rim of her champagne flute. When Ali stares at the turkey club on her plate and pretends to pick lettuce out of it, acting like she hadn’t heard the loaded question, Heather pushes a little further. She nudges the pointed toe of her pink kitten heels into Ali’s calf from across the table. “What’s going on there?”

Ali raises her eyes from the iceberg lettuce on her plate, and Heather is shocked to see the desperation and guilt she had expected missing from the cinnamon of her irises. She offers a mindless shrug. “Ashlyn’s a friend. She’s new to the team, I can tell she doesn’t feel a part, and I want her to feel comfortable around us.”

“You came running into mine and Hope’s room yesterday looking like you had just fucked something up. Should we talk about that?” Heather is trying desperately to maintain control of the conversation, something she normally does with ease — especially with Ali, who has a very one-track mind and can’t lie to save her life.

Another shrug from Ali. “I don’t know what you want to talk about when nothing is going on.”

She can barely contain her frustration as she watches, amazed, while Ali casually takes another bite of the rye bread and turkey. Ali is pretending that nothing is going on — something she only does when something _is _going on — and lying straight to her face without even batting an eyelash. For as long as she’s known her, Ali Krieger has been deeply emotional, always feeling something or another too much, whether it be happiness or sadness or anger or frustration or doubt or love. She’s used to the unpredictability and almost spastic change in Ali’s emotions from minute to minute. The girl is an open book. One look at her at any given time and Heather can tell exactly what she’s feeling. Either she’s become a really good actress in the past two weeks and doesn’t want her to know what she’s feeling, or she doesn’t even know yet herself.__

“I’m not dumb, Alexandra Krieger.” Heather pauses as she reaches across the table to let her hand fall on top of Ali’s. “It doesn’t take a degree from Stanford to read you like a dictionary. I just don’t want to see you get hurt.”

Ali’s eyes darken and her fork clatters to the china plate. “I’m not going to get hurt, Heather. I’m not doing anything that you wouldn’t do.”

_So the truth comes out._

“And what exactly might that be?” She keeps her tone as even and light as possible.

“I’m not screwing with her emotions and I’m not letting her screw with mine. I’ve got enough on the line that this has to be taken seriously. There’s a World Cup in a few months, in case you’ve forgotten, and I have Rikki and Maudie. I’m not going to fuck any of that up, if that’s what you’re saying.”

Heather laughs, hoping it will send Ali back into the mode she’s comfortable dealing with — happy, slightly buzzed from the mimosas, and not taking anything other than the game too seriously. “God, no, Al, that’s not what I’m saying at all. I know you. I know you’re fiercely loyal and protective of those you care for.”

“So what are you saying?” Ali’s eyes remain hard and sharp.

“I’m saying…” Heather winces and takes another long swallow of her mimosa. “I’m saying that I have seen you fall too hard before, Ali. I’m saying that you know none of this can happen, not with your life the way it is and the World Cup so soon. I’m saying that you may not want to be screwing with Ashlyn’s emotions, but you are, and I think an apology is in order.”

The way that Ali is immediately defensive and reactionary sends regret and self-loathing down her spine. She’s said the wrong thing.

_“You, _” Ali all but hisses, throwing her napkin down and pushing back from the table forcefully, “don’t know anything about my life.”__

Mittsy has one last-ditch effort at salvaging this lunch date and her relationship with Ali. “You’re right, I don’t. I don’t really know anything about your life other than what you’ve told me. I know that you love your family more than anything else in the world and would give all this up for them to be happy. I know that you fear mediocrity above all else. I know that you are one of the most caring, compassionate, giving people I have ever met. I know that you don’t want to get hurt so you keep everyone who could possibly care about you at an arm’s length away. And I know that you want so badly to save people because you couldn’t save him, but damn it Ali, that’s not how life works and _you can’t save people. _You couldn’t save Kyle from addiction, you couldn’t save your parents’ marriage, you couldn’t save yourself from Sara, you couldn’t save Jesse, and you can’t save Rikki from herself. I know you want to, believe me I do, but you can’t.”__

There are tears pooled in the corners of Ali’s eyes that she will stubbornly refuse to let fall until she is out of Heather’s sight. “You know what you _want _to know, Mittsy, and that’s it. Don’t you fucking dare tell me what you know about me. You want to talk about apologies? I would say you owe me a pretty big one.”__

And with that, Ali gathers up her mustard yellow leather clutch and heads straight out the door.


	7. used to be yours.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A letter from Ali to her first real love.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I am so, so eternally thankful for you guys. I love hearing from you! I do read every comment and take it into consideration. I will be in Edmonton for the game tomorrow and then camping out in Canada until Friday, so I apologize that I’ll be off the grid for a few days. I feel like this will be a long fic...I have a lot in mind, and there's a very broad time span I can cover. I know where I am going and I can't wait to write more! But in other news, GO USA!!!!!!!

_Frankfurt, Germany. November 13, 2009._

_There are flowers on the table when I get home from practice._

_A bouquet of Edelweiss, freshly picked and finding their home in a delicate blue pottery vase that was painted by your grandmother._

_What scares me the most about you is that you can still make me smile a year and a half later._

_You are standing in the kitchen, listening to Bob Dylan on vinyl as you cook for me. The windows to the flat are thrown open, letting the steam rising from the pans in front of you out and the sound of a soft drizzle in. You do not know yet that I am home, that I am here, that I am terribly in love with you, so I sit at the table, smell the flowers you picked for me, and watch you work. The only sounds are the cars passing by on Eiserner Steg, whatever you are making sizzling in the pan, and Bob Dylan’s voice ringing off the turntable singing ‘Mama, You Been On My Mind.’ You’re slightly off key, like you always are, and I can hear the emotion in every note. I like you best this way, the way you sing when you think you’re alone and the way you are unafraid of being exactly who you are._

_I don’t mean trouble, please don’t put me down or get upset,_  
_I am not pleadin’ or sayin’ I can’t forget_  
_I do not walk the floor bowed down and bent, but yet Mama, you been on my mind._

_You had a rough day at work. You always do when you’re home this early. I will never understand how you do all you do, and yet your heart is not hardened and cold to the world. I am proud of you. Every day you do your job with more grace and poise than I can even begin to imagine, and you do it all with ten times more honor in your baby toe than I have in my whole body. Your job is not easy. It cannot be easy to save lives, to watch a heart stop beating, to do all you can and have it not be enough. I know nothing of this. I kick a soccer ball for a living. You are a doctor. They rely on me to score goals and keep them entertained. People rely on you to bring back their daughters and sons and mothers and fathers and lovers from the edge of something that seems to be a death sentence._

_Cancer._

_I wonder for a moment about who you lost today. I pray it is not the little boy with the two big brothers and the mother who already lost her husband. I pray that it is not the grandmother who only wants to see her first grandchild. I pray that it is not the daughter of the man who had to quit his job to take care of her. And I pray that it is not the tiny girl whose parents were killed by a senseless act of violence when all they wanted was to share their greatest joy — what they believed in so much they would die for it — with a lost people._

_You do not hide your tears from me when you turn and I am sitting atop the table your father built with his own hands out of the wood from your childhood home in the war-torn Falklands. I hold you as you cry, and I remember how I would have considered this to be backwards at another point in my life — you crying, and I holding you close against my chest. Vulnerable. Gentle. Compassionate. These all define you. Scared. Flighty. In love. These define me. I could not love you when we first began. My heart was damaged, a cancer of my own, and your willingness to accept me — all of me — was terrifying at first. I think now that it was because I was so surprised and unprepared to fall in love with you. Now I only wish I could take your sadness and heaviness and make it my own._

_While we eat, Fleetwood Mac plays on vinyl. Stevie Nicks sings Landslide with cracks and scratches and pops, and I feel the music deep in my chest. You like me best this way. Not naked beneath the bed sheets or scoring goals or winning games, but sitting at the dinner table with dirty hair and bare feet and tears in my eyes because I feel everything too much. You watch me as my eyes flutter shut with every note, as my lips sing along silently, as my hands dance across imaginary piano keys._

_Well I’ve been afraid of changing_  
_Because I built my life around you_  
_But time makes you bolder_  
_Even children get older, And I’m getting older too._

_You are asleep now, and I continue to watch you. You amaze me every day. I am so lucky to be yours. I write honestly when I say that nothing could have prepared me for this honor. I will continue to love you every day until I take my last breath. Should death part us before our time, I will keep your heart in mine, and I hope in earnest that should I die you will do the same. I pray for the strength you emanate. I wish for the courage, bravery, humility, compassion, and genuine care you breathe. I love you, and I am in love with you. I will never stop being in love with you. You are my yesterday, my today, my tomorrow, my forever, Jesse Azzarelli._

_You love vanilla, jazz, cats, the mountains; I love chocolate, R &B, dogs, the beach.  
You love photography, Italian food, and ferry boats. I love words, Mexican food, and airports._

_The things we share, we share in full. I share my heart with you._

_Always,  
Your Alex._


	8. too little, too late.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Guess who found service on top of a mountain in rural Canada?!?!?! (Clearly, it's me.) Wrote this on my phone. The game was a freaking blast. This team is my life. I'll be back in the good old U.S. of A later and I can't wait to write more and watch us beat China tomorrow night! Love you guys!

_Los Angeles, California. March 2011._

The door falls shut with a loud slam.

Hope is barely phased and slow to react, glancing up from the book she’s reading only for a few seconds to see who has entered her room.

“I take it that went poorly,” she comments, her eyes already refocused on skimming the page of her paperback to find where she left off.

Mittsy throws herself dramatically across her bed and sighs heavily. “You have no idea.”

A silence ensues—one that Hope can’t quite read, so she lets out a quiet exhale, turns down the corner of the page she’s on to mark her place, and folds her hands over the book neatly in her lap before she again looks to Heather. She’s never been outgoing or talkative—never one to talk about personal things with people unless she knows them as well as she knows herself. The national team has been a bit of an exception. Living with twenty-two or more other women, things get out of her control fairly quickly. She’s found that it’s easier if she listens to what they have to say and even tells them some of what’s going on in her life occasionally. They click better when they’re all on the same page. The look on Mittsy’s face suggests that Hope should indeed push further.

“Ali didn’t fall into your trap, then?”

It’s all she says, but it’s enough. Mittsy has known Hope for long enough and they respect each other enough to know that not much more will come from the goalkeeper. In fact, Mittsy may be a bit premature in saying this, but she believes that Hope may be as intimidated by the defender as the rest of them is by Hope herself. It has resulted in a healthy amount of trust and has led to a friendship that is defined by their understanding of the other—know when to push and when to leave well enough alone. Hope may have an opinion on everything and have a tendency to be sharp-tongued when it comes to the media and her career, but outside of their line of work, she’s rather quiet. Heather talks more than almost anyone Hope knows. And for some reason, it works for them to share this trust and mutual respect.

Miserably, Mittsy shakes her head no. “I guess I was wrong in how I went about doing this whole thing. I mean, Ali’s like a sister to me. We tell each other literally everything. I thought that I could take a direct approach like we always do with one another, but I’m tellin’ you, Hope — I have never seen her that angry.”

Hope winces. Ali may seem sweet as pie, but the girl’s got a temper on her. The game brings out the worst of that attitude, but she wouldn’t want to cross Ali off the field either. Even though she has made a lot of progress toward tempering her anger in the past few years (Pia told her she had to take it down a few levels after she nearly got a red card for arguing with a referee) Ali is still Ali, and provoking her is never a good idea. Recently, it’s taken a lot to make Ali lose her cool, but a quick, easy way to do so — Hope has seen — is to offend her or someone she loves in any way.

“Never?”

Heather shakes her head no. “It started out fine. I asked her about Ashlyn, and suddenly the world’s worst liar ever was lying to my face. I don’t know what set her off, but her guard went straight up. Then I tried to get her to talk, because normally Ali is an open book…an over-sharer. But she kept lying, and then got belligerent when I pushed a little harder. I told her that she couldn’t fuck with Ashlyn’s emotions because we have a World Cup to think about and because she’s got Rikki and Maudie, and then I tried to remind her that she should apologize to Ashlyn for screwing with her heart. And then she told me that I owed her an apology and I haven’t seen her since.”

“You told her she should apologize to Ashlyn?”

“Yeah. Why; should I have done something different?”

Again, Hope cringes a bit. “Maybe you should have bought her a purse first. Or maybe you should have just dropped it when she started to lie. We tell lies when we are afraid. We lie because we are afraid of what we don’t know, of what people will think of us, of what the truth means for us. The problem is that each lie becomes a little more rooted in what you believe to be the truth, and the longer you lie, the more you’ll believe it’s actually the truth.”

“And what exactly is Ali Krieger so afraid of?”

Hope shrugs. “Love.”

\- - - - - - - - - - - - - 

_She’s face down on the far bed of the hotel when you get in from a workout with Jill and Barnie. At first you don’t say anything, unsure of what your boundaries are and what exactly the two of you have going on. Then you remind yourself that it’s nothing — that it has to be nothing, because she has someone waiting for her — and take a deep breath._

_You ask her what is wrong, and she turns her head from where it’s been buried in the pillows to look at you. There is mascara on the white of the hotel sheets, and her cheeks are blotched red. Something churns deep in your stomach, and you can’t quite define what that means until you realize that it’s anger. You want to know who made her feel like this, who hurt her, who made her cry, and you want to make them feel sorry for ever being born. This makes something even more unsettling burn in your core. You are scared. You can’t love her. Hope told you that you can’t love her. You know you can’t. But God damn it, you do. You have known her for less than a year and you love her. You love her and she can’t be yours. The right to protect her, to kiss her sadness away, to whisper light back into her eyes and laughter back into her chest is not yours. Her heart belongs to someone else._

_She tells you that it’s just been a bad day._

_You know the minute the words leave her lip that they may be true, but this isn’t the whole story. And you want with all that is in you to keep pushing, to beg her to tell you the rest of it. But you swallow that want and instead sit down across from her on your own bed, resisting the urge to reach out and smooth her hair. You tell her that everyone has bad days, and you have your share of them too, and that what always helps you is to take a hot bath with soft music playing and let yourself cry, and you say that you call your mom and talk to her for hours because it always helps to have someone to talk to who genuinely cares. (What you don’t say is that you care. That you want to be that person. That you want to hear her story.) You tell her that bad days are just that — bad days — and that tomorrow will be better._

_She tells you you’re a good friend._

_You fight the tears burning at the back of your eyes and decide to be just that, her friend. Everyone needs somebody in a different way. You need a best friend, she needs someone to talk to. And you can be that. You can do that._

_What you don’t say is that you don’t think being her friend is enough. You want to be hers._

_It’s all just not enough. You’ve done too little, too late._


	9. she was in love once.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> When you ask hard questions, you get the hard answers.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> IT IS A BEAUTIFUL DAY TO BE AN AMERICAN ISN'T IT LADIES AND GENTS. YES MARRIAGE EQUALITY!!!! YES FOOTBALL!!!! GO USA!!!! WE ARE STRONGER TODAY!!!

_Los Angeles, California. March 2011._

Rikki and Maudie sit on either side of Ali at team dinner.

Ashlyn takes a seat on the opposite side of the table, right between Becky and Hope, and tries her best to convince herself that she isn’t bothered.

What makes her more uncomfortable than Rikki, the supermodel, sitting five chairs down from her is that Pia has not said a single word about the two joining them for a meal out. Pia is normally emotionally closed off and tight-lipped about her own personal life, and the fact that Ali’s girlfriend and almost daughter showed up to eat at Spago with the team would normally be something they’d have an impromptu team meeting about — Pia would pull them all aside before their food arrived and tell them that she had no interest whatsoever in their personal lives and that seeing them focus on things other than football gave her heartburn so they’d better fix that in the next ten seconds. Instead, Pia has remained mum on the issue, even greeting Rikki with a polite handshake and Maudie with a tight half-smile that didn’t reach her eyes.

As usual, Rikki and Maudie are dressed to the nines. Ashlyn despises how put-together they both look. Rikki’s hair is messy in a way that only models can pull off — on anyone else it’s bed hair and considered unacceptable to wear out in public — and she still has on the not-so-subtle makeup from her first photoshoot of the week. She’s wearing a tight pair of leather pants and six-inch heels that make her tower of them all, including the goalkeepers. Her lacy tank top is flowing in all the right places and shows a bit too much cleavage to be tasteful but not enough to keep a few from shamelessly staring. Ali looks proud if not a bit smug. Ashlyn does enough studying the toddler to find that her jeans are from Diesel and her leather jacket is from Dolce and Gabbana. Figures. They’re out to team dinner and Christie Rampone’s kids are dressed reasonably in Baby Gap. When Ashlyn was little, it was a privilege to buy new shoes at Buster Brown’s. This kid’s outfit is more expensive than a month’s rent in Washington, D.C.

“Do you think she bought that with Ali’s money or hers?” Becky whispers out of the corner of her mouth to Hope.

Ashlyn is stunned for all of three seconds. She figured that they all supported who their teammates loved. Apparently they are allowed to be just as skeptical of a bikini model as she is. And from what she can tell, all happiness for Ali and Rikki is feigned.

“Probably Ali’s. I don’t know; do supermodels get paid a lot? I’m not sure of the payroll of someone who gets naked for a living,” Hope replies just as subtly, not glancing up from her menu.

Becky shrugs. “I still think it to be absolutely ludicrous that she earns a living by getting her picture taken.”

From Becky’s other side, LeP blinks twice and points out, “We earn a living kicking a ball up and down a field and trying to send it into a net.”

“Touché,” Hope answers, still debating between the prime rib and a sushi roll. “And when you consider the fact that a majority of our money is earned through endorsements, it gets even crazier. We get a mediocre salary from U.S. Soccer and then a giant heap of money from the people who pay us to say that we use their stuff. Think about it for a minute.”

They all nod in careful consideration for a moment. While players in the MLS earn a minimum of around $50,000 annually, the WPS pays significantly less. Ashlyn knows that her middle-class (if not slightly crappy) apartment is a bit of a shock to some of her national teammates — the ones who earn hundreds of thousands from being on the U.S. Soccer payroll but mainly from endorsements, like Hope and Christie and Becky — but it’s all she can do to live on her measly salary of $4500 a month. Some of them may bring in over a million annually, but Ashlyn Harris is still scraping by on a WPS minimum. On another note, Ali Krieger is sure to earn quite a bit more than what Ashlyn does. She plays for a premiere league in Germany. She’s a familiar face in the world of international soccer. She has endorsements. She could probably pay for her girlfriend’s kid to be outfitted in Diesel every day if she wanted to. She easily makes more than Rikki, who — come to think of it — Ashlyn has never seen in any ad, ever, for Burberry or any other company at that.

“I still think it’s dumb that the two-year-old is wearing D&G,” Becky says, her nose turned up slightly.

At this, they all nod sensibly and agree that a child wearing Dolce is a bit absurd. And it is.

Ashlyn can’t help but feel all her hope for a chance with Ali dying off as the night drags on, though. Ali and Rikki hold hands during dessert, and Maudie falls asleep in Ali’s arms as they walk back to the hotel. Tobin of all people comments on how cute they are together, and it’s A-Rod who points out that this is what love looks like — to accept someone and love them knowing they have baggage…they have scars…they have insecurities and attachments and problems. She tries not to look visibly disappointed, but she drags behind the rest of their group only a block later, and soon she finds herself walking beside Pia, who asks her if she’s hurt. (Ashlyn replies that she is not hurt, and Pia tells her that if that’s the case she better kick it into gear because lagging after team dinner is highly frowned upon.)

Back at the hotel, Ali prepares to tell Rikki and Maudie goodbye. They’re heading to Portugal tomorrow for the Algarve Cup, and the blonde duo will fly back to Germany in two more days. They won’t see each other for a solid two weeks, and that notion seems to really make Ali upset. Uncomfortable, Ashlyn changes as fast as she can and hastily offers the whole room to them for the night, assuring them that she can bunk with HAO and Becky and it’s really no trouble as she grabs her pillow and phone charger before making a mad dash down the hall.

Becky and HAO have no reservations about allowing her to crash in their room, as she predicted, and welcome her in gladly. They’re showered and ready for bed, their TV on and playing a documentary that Ashlyn has actually seen on the History Channel. For a while, they talk about that, the movie. It’s about the Titanic, something Ashlyn finds fascinating and horrifying at the same time, and they all agree that — should they ever end up in Pigeon Forge, Tennessee, or anywhere near Branson, Missouri, for training or a game — they should all take a trip to the Titanic Museum together. Things only get weird when HAO and Becky call themselves the “Nerd Squad” and Ashlyn fears that they’ll see how little she actually knows about anything other than Shark Week, the Titanic, and 9/11.

“Random question…” Ashlyn says slowly after a silence has settled over them all, like they don’t know what else to talk about. “Why is Pia so okay with Ali’s girlfriend and kid showing up to team dinner?”

HAO and Becky exchange looks — looks that say they don’t quite know if this is their place to answer, if it’s their story to tell. Becky’s cheeks flush red as her eyes flicker between Heather and Ashlyn and the ground, debating whether or not the newcomer can be trusted with this new information about Ali.

“Well…it’s a long story,” she finally offers. “A long, sad story that we try not to talk about too much.”

Ashlyn begs them with her eyes to tell her more. A long, sad story is something she has time for. She wants to understand why it’s so different for Ali Krieger than it is for everyone else.

Becky sighs heavily and waits for HAO to nod her slow approval before she goes on. “Ali’s not had it all that easy. She may have a great life now, yeah, but she’s gone through hell to get here. Her childhood was normal if not cookie-cutter. Her parents are teachers and her brother is a year and a half older than her. They’ve been best friends for as long as I’ve known Kriegs. Her parents divorced not long after she graduated high school, and her brother got into drugs really bad.” She’s trying to give Ashlyn as much as she can without giving her too much. It’s Ali’s story to tell, not Becky Sauerbrunn’s. “They all stopped communicating for a while, and she broke her leg two days before the NCAA College Cup when she was 21. Had some complications from that, blood clots and pulmonary embolisms, and it took her nearly dying for him to get sober and reconnect.

“I guess it seemed better for her after that, but there was no professional soccer league when she graduated college. She went to Germany and fell in love. With the city, with the football. And for a few months she thought she fell in love with Sara. Sara was a bitch, we all saw it — but she didn’t. She thought she was going to marry this girl after only a month with her. But then Sara did what we all knew she would do. After she let Ali believe that the stars were her eyes and the whole world could fit in her heart, she left. I think what hurt her the most was that we all saw it coming, and she wanted so badly to prove us wrong. That’s when the doubt first started to creep into her eyes.

“It was around Independence Day of ’08, her first real holiday away from home in Frankfurt, and she met this doctor. He was tall and dark and handsome, but what was more beautiful was his heart. He was everything you want a man to be. He was gentle but strong; kind and genuine; compassionate and sweet; sensitive and funny; intelligent and attentive. He was looking for a cure for cancer, and he made you feel better just by smiling. You couldn’t help but love him. To this day, I’m convinced he was her real love — one of those rare, genuine loves that we are meant to have, but maybe not for eternity. If Jesse and Ali were soulmates, then I no longer believe in fate because if fate were kind, they’d still be together.”

Ashlyn can only emit a small squeak. “Why aren’t they together any more?”

There is a grave silence. “You want to know why Pia treats Ali differently? Because Pia saw in Ali what she didn’t see in the rest of us. She saw love. She saw a chance to be truly, genuinely, recklessly loved with no conditions, without boundaries, with no rules. She saw hope when she saw Ali and Jesse together, just like the rest of us did. She was in love once, and when she saw them, she could be in love again.”

“But they aren’t together any more!!!” Ashlyn all but erupts. “Why aren’t they together anymore if they were so perfect?!”

HAO glances to Becky, who is now pretending like the question was not asked.

“Like Becks said…sometimes we can’t have who we love forever.”


	10. you left me.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Wow. This was a hard chapter to write. I struggled to write it…wrote and rewrote a few times if I didn’t like one word…cried several times. I wanted it to be perfect, to convey the emotions — the grief, the anger, the confusion, the numb. I still wish I could do my thoughts more justice. Grief is a horrific and beautiful thing. It brings out the best and worst of people. I hope I wrote accordingly.

_Frankfurt, Germany. December 24, 2009._

_You left me on a Thursday at Christmastime._

_A cold grey morning blanketed with snow, smelling of pine and your cologne, on a day that should feel like magic._

What scares me the most about you is that we didn’t even say goodbye.

_You left while we both slept, you in a hospital bed and I in our home, sometime when you were hidden by the dark of the night. I did not yet know that you had left me. I was awake, thinking of streusel and silver moons and brown paper packages and lights on the Christmas tree. You were already gone, and I was dreaming about It’s a Wonderful Life and carols and brown sugar ham. I had just finished wrapping your gift in a tiny box. A ring. A silver band with my name engraved on the inside in your handwriting — Alex. I never thought I would be so straightforward as to give you a ring, but my friends suggested that maybe you needed a push, and I was tired of not being your wife. The phone rang at seven twenty-three. It was seven twenty-four when they told me I needed to get to the hospital as soon as possible._

_They told me not to slip on the ice._

_I don’t know why that is what sticks with me most out of those hours, but they told me not to slip on the ice._

_Sometime between when your friend asked me to come to the hospital quickly and when your charge nurse told me not to slip on the ice, I began to worry. I wondered if you had gotten dehydrated while in surgery, or if you had lost the little girl whose wish was to make it Christmas. I wondered if there was a crazy person with a gun who came to your hospital. I wondered if you had slipped or had a fever. I worried about our last conversation. I knew it would be something as insignificant and meaningless as a fight over what to do on Christmas Eve or what to have for dinner. I knew I would wish I had said more, told you more how much you mean to me, said I love you just one more time. I wondered if I had even said it when we last spoke._

_I did not slip on the ice._

_It was seven forty-one when they told me you had left me._

_You never were great at goodbyes. You told me that goodbye suggests that two will never meet again, so you refrain from goodbyes all together. This is no different, I suppose. It’s ironic, the way you left me. Saving people can get tiring, I think, so you had to take a rest._

_They say it’s fate, it’s how you were supposed to go. The same place that made you feel more alive and more at home than any other place ever could is the same place that you would leave me. I say it’s cruel. You slipped away in your sleep, at the bedside of Nadia whose mother and father couldn’t be in the hospital with her for Christmas. You went to sleep, and you just didn’t wake up. They call it destiny — it was your “time.” They say that God sends some people to the Earth to be our angels. They are here, and they are beautiful, and they make the world a better place, but then He calls them back home. I weep at the naivety of the idea of a God who could take a beating heart away while he slept at the side of a child who was an orphan on Christmas. I scoff at the irony of the fact that you died in a place of healing; that you slipped away in the very room where a little girl was healed of what had been deemed a certain death; that the very thing you worked hard to save other people from would take you._

_It was a Thursday morning when I met you, in the hospital to visit a friend, and the minute I saw you my stomach was in knots. You did not know it, but I watched you then, smiling that beautiful smile at a little girl who I would later learn had no chance at life but you. I loved you then. I never stopped. I never will, I suppose._

_On our second date I asked you what you were afraid of. You said snakes, mostly. Mice. Not ever making an impression on the world. Humans, especially the ones who were taught bigotry and racism and hatred and discrimination and don’t know any better. And you asked what I was afraid of. “Death. Being alone. Losing my family. Spiders, really I’m afraid of spiders. Mediocrity. Never being good enough.”_

_The next week, you asked me if I liked dogs and ice cream. God, yes. I love dogs. I had a giant mutt growing up who slept at the foot of my bed and shared my pillow when it rained. (You had never had a dog, but you brought home a puppy two months later.) Ice cream is everything. Coffee ice cream is probably my favorite. I like chocolate too, though. And anyone who doesn’t like puppies or ice cream has no room in my life._

_One day I asked you what you do when you have a bad day. We were sitting on the couch in your apartment that would later become our apartment, talking about the book I had just finished — The Little Prince. And out of the blue, during one of our comfortable silences that usually came when we were both thinking of something to say that would express how we felt, I asked what you did when your day was just ridiculously crappy. You thought for a minute, your eyes going from mine to the open windows to the pictures hanging on the wall, and then you answered. “Open all the windows if I can. Take a shower so hot it leaves red marks on my back. Let myself feel absolutely awful for exactly sixty seconds. Then I cook. Listen to Bob Dylan or Fleetwood Mac, mostly Dylan though, on vinyl. Call my grandmother. Remind myself that a bad day does not mean a bad life. If today the rain is pouring, the wind is blowing, there’s no sunshine to be seen, tomorrow is new. Tomorrow will be better. And I suddenly feel better.”_

_If you had asked me then how I turned around my bad days, I would have lied. (I would have said that I turn off all the lights and take a bath so hot steam rises off my body. Burn a lavender candle while listening to old jazz and R &B — lots of Ray Charles and Etta James and Billie Holliday — and soaking in the bubbles. Wash my hair with vanilla shampoo that reminds me of my mom. Put on my favorite Penn State hoodie and fuzzy socks. Call my mom, call my brother, call my best friend back home. Eat orange chicken for dinner. Kick a soccer ball around for a bit — no training, no workout, just kick at a goal or a wall or juggle a little. Read a book or watch a sad movie. Sleep and hope that tomorrow is better.) But what I should have said was that I write letters to you that you will never read. I listen to Bob Dylan because it makes you smile. I bake cookies or brownies or make hot chocolate. I think about your smile and suddenly the day is better._

_We are all each other has in Germany. You had a family once upon a time — a father, your Papa, who was a soldier; your mother who died in the fire that took your home; three sisters who all got sick and had to leave you too soon. My own family is an ocean away, unaware of all that has happened in a day. There are friends, for sure, and people who knew you, thought you were a good man, admired your heart. But none of them are family._

_I clean out your locker in the hospital alone. Your possessions fit in one cardboard box that I can hold in my arms. The white doctor’s coat you were so proud to receive upon graduation but far too humble to boast about. A pair of brown leather loafers. A black-bound notebook that has written upon its pages how you want to cure cancer, the very thing that stole you away from me without any warning whatsoever. A worn motorcycle jacket that you slipped on every morning before work from October to March. Nobody stops me on my out the hospital doors. They all have sad eyes that say they don’t know what to say to the girl who just lost half her heart. They try not to look at me for too long, afraid I will misinterpret their sympathy._

_Nobody comes to the apartment. There are no meals brought over from grieving neighbors or the florist who doesn’t want me to have to worry about what I am going to eat. One message is waiting on the answering machine. Your grandmother has passed away in Argentina. Her funeral is Monday. There are no visitors. No one calls. Nobody wishes me their condolences. Nobody knows yet that there are condolences to offer. I don’t know how to let them all know that you, Jesse Azzarelli, have left us on this Christmas Eve, and that the world will never be the same because of it. The sky will never have the same blue that it did when you were here. The roses will never bloom as brightly, the waters will never be as calm, the sun never so warm. When you left, so much of the good in the world went with you. Your smile was magic. Your heart was true. Your eyes were kind. Your laughter was medicine._

_I throw away all the Bob Dylan records. I send the tree out the window and watch it float down the river. I take all the gifts but one to the abbey at Kaiserdom Sankt Bartholomäus. (I keep the ring and put it on a chain around my neck, so long it hangs between my breasts next to my heart.) I tell the newspaper what to say about you, that you were more than a doctor, you were a healer, and that you made everyone feel a little better just by your smile. I tell them that you were born in the Falkland Islands and came here to Germany when you were but a boy. I tell them that your father, mother, both sets of grandparents, and three sisters went before you and waited a long time to be reunited with you in death. And I tell them that, while many people have lost you today and mourn the loss of a great man, you are survived only by an unborn child. I don’t quite know what to put myself as — your girlfriend, your fiance, your other half — so I left it that. An unborn son._

_Survived by. It’s cruel, but I didn’t realize just how truly fitting it was until today. Because that’s all a person can really do when part of their heart is missing. Survive. To survive means to persist. To fight on. To remain alive. To persevere. It’s funny how the term is “survived by” and not “still living are…” Because surviving and living are two completely different things. I don’t know if I will ever be able to truly live again. You were all my reasons. Now I have but one._

_You would love that we are having a baby. I remember finding out that I was pregnant — that I am carrying a piece of you inside me — and being so excited to tell you. But I have always been such a dreamer, so set on making moments special and magical and memorable, that I wanted to wait. And the longer I waited, the more I went to practice just to watch and just to support, the more excited I became. I kept it my secret for another eight weeks after I found out, sixteen weeks total, and I made sure to stay asleep until you left for work so you didn’t see me get sick. I wore baggy shirts when my belly started to grow rounder, and I refused to let you cuddle me from behind at night. I was going to tell you tonight that we are going to have a son. I was going to give you the ring and a letter and a framed sonogram picture of our baby._

_I should have told you sooner._

_We will celebrate your life two days after Christmas. Your ashes will be spread over the Eiserner Steg silently, much like how you lived gently so as to not disturb nature’s own patterns. There will be weeping. There will be laughter. I will speak of how wonderful and kind you were, how you never walked on grass or picked flowers from anyone’s garden, how you always gave more than what was expected, how you never had an unkind word to say about anyone or anything, how you spoke out against violence and hate, how you stood up for love and happiness and justice. I will speak of how well you loved people, of how you paid Greta the florist so well she was able to finally get her home back from those who had taken it from her, of how you gave me so much of the world that it couldn’t all fit in my heart. I will tell the world that you were the last good man on this Earth, and without you, we should all feel a little heavier…all feel like we are missing something…all feel a little more alone._

_I won’t listen to Bob Dylan anymore. I won’t write you letters. I won’t kiss you goodnight._

_For what it’s worth, you’re still my everything. You are still all my reasons._

_I miss you in the most beautiful way, in a way that makes it hard to breathe. I miss you more painfully each second I go on without you. Like wanting to go home, only you are much more than home, more than a place, more than walls and a bed and Bob Dylan in the kitchen. You are the ache in my chest when I run too hard. You are music and poetry and the song I can’t stop singing. You are hands dancing across piano keys, cursive lines across a white blank page, black ink spilling across my fingers and onto paper. You are the hole in my chest that will never be filled, that will sit empty until I die. I long for you in the most beautiful, most painful way. I can’t breathe without you._

_You left me on a Thursday at Christmastime._

_In case you should ever forget, I am never not in love with you, never not missing you, never not thinking of you._


	11. best friends for now.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I had to write something a little lighter after that last chapter. I know it's short, but the next chapter is already in the works. Don't worry, angst and backstory to follow! Until then, enjoy a little World Cup action :)

_Washington, D.C. July 2011._

Ashlyn watches the World Cup from her couch in D.C. eating hot Cheetos and trying to pretend that she isn’t insanely bitter and angry that she isn’t there with them in Germany. (Mostly, she’s upset that she isn’t there with _Ali _in Germany, the place she considers her second home. She wants to hear her slip into that little accent and talk about Frankfurt and Dresden and Berlin. She wants to watch her eyes light up when they land and get a little tour of Ali’s Germany when they have free time. Instead, she’s breaking all of her diet regimen and vegging out on a sagging leather sofa in an apartment that has a broken air conditioner. Go figure.) What’s worse than not making the team is the call that Pia gave her to let her know that she was not the World Cup roster. (“I just thought you should hear it from me that you aren’t going to Germany for the World Cup. If there are any questions — real questions, not belligerent ones about why you think you should be going with us — I am more than willing to answer them when I find the time.”)__

She thought that not making the roster would feel a death sentence, but it feels more like getting dumped by someone you’ve dated for a really long time — like, time to get married long. Rather than working her ass off to make sure she’s ready for the Olympics next year or trying to make Pia regret not putting her name on that roster, she’s been increasingly lazy while the WPS takes a World Cup break. She’s watched three seasons of _Law & Order: Special Victims Unit _and perfected her chocolate mousse recipe. She’s started cheering too loud and screaming alone in her living room during games. She found herself taking personal shots at the opposing teams when play got boring — telling her TV that someone from Sweden had buck teeth or bad hair or stubby legs. It’s not that she’s giving up hope of playing. She’s just come to believe that it’s easier to set yourself up for failure than to face the heartbreak that comes with hope.__

For these reasons, it’s during the USA-Brazil quarterfinal game that Ashlyn finds herself pacing in the living room of her apartment. She’s sweating buckets — July in Washington D.C. is unforgiving and her a/c isn’t fixed yet — and wearing the same tee shirt she’s had on for three days. (It’s really starting to feel like a pathetic breakup.) It’s not even a USA tee shirt, either. It’s from a Piggly Wiggly in Florida. For supper, she made macaroni and cheese from a box and sat down on her couch with a beer to watch her teammates, who had finally started to feel like family, play. She’s almost thrown up three times, is on her third beer, and knows her neighbor is going to call in (another) noise complaint, but her heart is in her throat and she can’t sit down and DEAR GOD ALI KRIEGER IS TAKING THE DECIDING PENALTY KICK.

Ashlyn alternates between half-heartedly covering her eyes with her hands, peeking out from her fingers, and staring wide-eyed at the TV. She watches as the camera pans from Ali’s parents and brother back to the field. Ali looks calm. That’s what Ashlyn notices as she steps up to the 18 to take the PK. Rather than the doubt that she has seen in her friend’s eyes from the moment they met, she sees a steady confidence that radiates from the hardness of her cinnamon irises. With those focused, determine eyes, she tells the goalkeeper that she’s about to make this penalty kick her bitch. And Ashlyn believes it.

As Ali takes a few steps back from the ball and prepares to take the kick, Ashlyn feels pride well up in her stomach. She decided months ago that she and Ali could only be friends, and since that first slip-up they have done a pretty damn good job at being “just friends.” Ashlyn pretends she doesn’t love Ali. Ali pretends she isn’t losing interest in Rikki, who works increasingly more “modeling” jobs and leaves Maudie with her most of the time. Neither has to pretend to enjoy their time together — Skype calls with Ali and Maudie while Ali gets Maudie ready for bed have become one of Ashlyn’s favorite things; Ali doesn’t hesitate to grab her phone and text Ashlyn when she needs advice or to vent or a pick-me-up. Ashlyn would like to think that she’s doing a pretty good job at pretending not to love Ali. She brings girls home now, really just one-night-stands, and she tells Ali that she might keep one of them around someday. (The truth is that each girl, each time, it’s just trying to make herself feel something for someone other than Alexandra Blaire Krieger.) But tonight, she feels nothing but immense pride for her best friend and the team that she has come to call her family.

Ali does not turn her hips as she takes the penalty.

That’s another thing that Ashlyn notices. She’s taught Ali how to make herself unreadable to a goalkeeper, which would be rather unfortunate should they ever find themselves on opposing teams, and Ali is doing just that in the World Cup. She doesn’t turn her hips, keeps her eyes straight ahead, and doesn’t start with the foot she’ll be kicking with. All of it has Brazil’s goalkeeper completely turned around. She dives in the opposite direction of the way Ali sent the ball, and with that, the United States advances to the semifinals of the 2011 Women’s World Cup. Ashlyn has to steady herself as she runs to her phone (it was dead until an hour before the match started, at which time she found it appropriate to plug it in to charge.)

_CONGRATS YOU FUCKING BADASS. I AM SO INCREDIBLY PROUD OF AND FOR YOU!!!! GO WIN IT ALL. LOVE YOU._

(And on second thought, she erases the love you and exchanges it for an awkward smiley face.)

It’s the middle of the night when Ali replies, but it’s probably morning in Germany.

_Oh, you know, I learned from the best ;) This one’s for you AH. Love you!_


	12. i choose life.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ali's last letter to Jesse.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the delay...Sometimes life changes in an instant! I have been busy taking care of my two-year-old niece after her mother (my sister) was called upon to serve our country. Extra proud to live in the land of the free and the home of the BRAVE today. USA all day, every day! Let's go win this thing tomorrow, and enjoy all the fireworks/barbecue/lake/parades today if you're an American! Thank you all!

“i will not say, do not weep; for not all tears are an evil.” - j.r.r. tolkien

\- - - - - - - - - - - - - 

_Frankfurt, Germany. April 22, 2010._

_Yesterday should have been the happiest day of my life._

_On a day that should have been filled with love and excitement and tears of joy and celebration and happiness more than anything, I spent hours weeping uncontrollably and screaming at God and praying for death._

_Yesterday, we had a son._

_He was born in the place we called home. It is now just a place, an apartment, walls that seem to close in on me a little more with each passing day. Where we used to sit for coffee in the morning, I now stack bills. Bills that are not paid. Letters from home. Letters from the bank and from America and from coaches in Germany and America. (I ignore most of them. I let them know I am okay; I am still alive; I will return to the game one day. They don’t know much about you, and they don’t know about our son at all. They think I needed a break. They think I ran myself ragged and that the pain of losing you was the last straw. In some ways, they may be right.) I have not slept in our bed since you left me. I have a permanent home on the pullout couch. It doesn’t matter much. I would be uncomfortable sleeping in a bed I shared with you; I am uncomfortable sleeping on a couch in my own house._

_My mother called yesterday morning, early. She wanted to hear from me, hear my voice, talk to me and find out how I’m doing. In any other life that would seem normal. Daughters are supposed to tell their mothers everything — their first kiss, their first crush, their first love, their first time, their first child. I have not told my mother anything but what I need to. I told her that I was sitting out a season. I told her I needed some money put into my bank account. And I told her that you had died, but I was going to make it. She has been good about it all. She hasn’t asked me to come visit. She hasn’t pushed me to talk about you. She didn’t insist that grief is no reason to quit something you love for a season. And she didn’t put a timeline on how long I could be sad that I don’t have you._

_She called just to catch up. She told me about how my brother is doing — how he has moved to Los Angeles to be a hairdresser and misses me more than anything. She laughed through a story about my dad, and though they are no longer married it’s sweet that she still cares about him and how he’s doing. She updated me on how my teammates back home are — Christie Rampone had another daughter; the WPS is doing well; the national team is looking forward to having me back as soon as I am ready. Of course, they all think that it’s my mind that is holding me back from playing. What they don’t know is that football has saved me, and if I was physically able I would be on the pitch every minute of every day training alongside them. I wouldn’t have taken a break from the game if I hadn’t been taking care of the little life inside of me — the life that is all I had left of you._

_She asked me why I sounded funny._

_Her question took me by surprise. I told her I was just tired and that I’d just woken up when she called. Truthfully, I had been awake for hours, trying to be okay with the fact that each wave of pain meant I was closer to having to give up all I had left of you. I didn’t tell her that I was pacing my living room trying not to cry as I listened to her laugh about how disgustingly normal everything was in her life. I didn’t tell her that her grandchild — the grandchild she’ll never know about — was going to make his way into the world whether I was ready or not. I instead told her I was about to be late for breakfast with Nadine and I had to go, but I’d call her again soon. I knew I was lying. I am not ready to call her again any time soon._

_I knew I could not go back to that hospital, to that awful place where you left me. I could not bring myself to go into those doors that now only serve as a reminder of death, sadness, loss and bring a new life into the world — a life that serves as my symbol of hope, life, and love. I could not let our son be born in the place his father died, in the place he lost his mother as well. I had to let myself be okay with that, with giving him the opportunity to be loved in a home where he’d have a father who was there to teach him to be a man and a mother who didn’t look at him with emptiness in her eyes because he reminded her of what she had lost. I found a midwife, a nice woman who did not know you and would not watch me cry with sympathy and pain in her own eyes, and when she asked about you, I just said that you would not be able to be here for our son’s birth._

_I had to tell Nadine and Sandra and Svenja about a month ago. I had not left the apartment in weeks. I had not taken visitors at home, and I took the train to market so I didn’t risk running into anyone I knew on the streets. They ambushed me one evening after I got back from visiting you, all still wearing their practice clothes and bundled up against the chill of early spring in Frankfurt. I had nowhere to hide. They all stared at me with wide eyes and open mouths and confusion all across their faces as they glanced between my empty eyes and round belly. I felt oddly protective of my own heart and the life inside me. I had been so set on doing this all alone, on making it as easy as possible to give him a chance at a normal life, that I felt angry with them for wanting to come check on me. You know how I get when things don’t go my way. I didn’t want anyone else to get to know him, to become attached to the idea of him, when I had worked so hard to make sure that I would not be selfish with him when it came time for him to leave me. I should have known that they would only love me…only protect us both…only want the best for us._

_Sandra beat the midwife to the apartment, and Nadine came in moving faster than I have ever seen a goalkeeper move. Svenja’s brother is in town, so she couldn’t slip away for more than an hour or two, but she came and reminded me to breathe and that I could yell and cry and curse if I needed to. It was these three women who held me together when I wanted nothing more than to fall apart. They did what you should have been here to do. They tied back my hair and rubbed my feet and walked with me around the living room and held my hands and put cool rags on my forehead and told me that it was all going to be okay and it would be over soon. They let me curse and weep and scream and be angry with you and with God. They let me feel sorry for myself. But they did not let me stay that way._

_I held our son for a few moments before he too was gone. I stroked his soft hair, dark and wavy like mine, and olive skin like yours. I stared into his eyes, big and round, blue now but I’m sure they’ll turn dark green like yours too. I kissed the softest skin and sweetest fingers and toes. He nursed before I let him go. We all cried. You should have been here to see this. We should be a family. We should have named him together and spent so many more moments like those few before he left — wrapped in blankets on the bed, the windows thrown open letting in sunshine, our son at my breast and me in your arms. But you are gone, and now he is too._

_I named him before he left. Bren Aimery Azzarelli. His last name will be something different, I suppose, but he’s still our son. I hope one day his mother and father tell him about his name, about how it was given to him that he may be strong and courageous; that he may be loved endlessly and give love endlessly; that he may know the honor of where he comes from. I hope they will tell him that Bren is German, and that it means flame, and that it was chosen because his mother prayed he would be on fire and never lukewarm in what he wants…in what he believes…in what he feels. I hope they will tell him that his middle name is French, like his father from the Falkland Islands, and means “king of work” because no man is richer or more honorable than one who knows hard work._

_I had him for maybe an hour. There is only one picture of us together, a Polaroid that Nadine snapped before he was taken to meet his new parents. It’s him, wrapped warm and snuggled in my arms as he nurses, and I am so glad you cannot see the hurt and the ache in my eyes. We are sitting next to a framed picture of you, graduation from medical school at Oxford. The light is in your eyes and the world is in your hands. I’ve put the photograph in my moleskine, marking this page for when I need to remember why life is so worth it. Our son will never know the two who created him, who loved each other so much that they made new life, who would have loved each other forever if fate had allowed. He will not know the love we both have for him. He will live across the ocean in Canada, somewhere in Vancouver with a father who puts out fires for a living, a mother who teaches school, two sisters who are six and five, and a dog that is older than most. He will not know Germany. He will not know me. But he will know love, and I hope that one day he understands that I loved him so much I had to give him a chance at a life he wouldn’t have had with me. I had to give him a chance to know what it is to be loved wholeheartedly, without selfishness or sadness or emptiness. I had to give him what I have known. I had to give him a family._

_Things would have looked so different if you were here. I still selfishly wish for you to return to me. Some days I think about meeting you instead, about death and afterlife and…and you, mostly. I think about you. You told me that I should always choose life. You taught me that life carries on even after death. You prayed that I would see that nothing is infinite, not even loss. That’s what keeps me going. You. Still, it’s you. I would love nothing more than to only ever love you again, to have forever with you and with Bren and with a hundred more babies who looked just like you. But I have to choose life. I have to choose to believe that there is still good in this world, that there is still love, that there is still happiness, that there is still time to waste and days to dream and life to live. I have to choose life._

_This is the last time I write while still in love with you. I will love you forever, but I cannot be in love with what we were…what we could have been. I am never going to not love you. I am never going to stop wanting you…missing you…wishing you were still mine. But I choose life, Jesse. I choose happiness. I choose good. I choose to fight._

_I choose life._


	13. we thought it was in the stars.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The title is based on a quote from the dear Abby Wambach in her FoxSports interview about believing. It still does not feel real that we won. I can't believe it. I am so proud. I am so happy. I am so lucky. I am an American. What more can we ask for?

_Frankfurt, Germany. July 2011._

The silver medal draped over Ali’s neck does not feel like seven hard-fought games, six hard-fought wins, and running out of time in the final. It does not feel deserving of “I’m proud of you” or “you’re my hero” or “you are amazing.”

It feels like failure.

Her heart ricochets against her ribs as they watch Japan receive their gold medals the World Cup trophy. She feels her stomach in knots and the tears stinging at the corners of her eyes, threatening to spill over with every passing instant. The roar of the stadium is too loud, too deep. It reverberates in her chest and makes her want to crumple to her knees. Each breath catches in her throat and lets her know that, as much as this feels like the end, like death, she is still alive.

_You have been in this place before,_ she reminds herself as she stares at the grass beneath her feet. _You have been here before. You have felt defeat and loss, and you know what it tastes like to come so far only to fall short. You have been here before, and you are alive. You chose this. You chose life. You chose to keep fighting, to keep believing, to keep believing in joy. I know it feels like all the good is gone, like there is nothing left, like everything that you have has been taken away from you…but you chose life. You have been here before, but you are going to make it. It’s going to be okay._

The cold silver hangs heavily between her breasts, hammering against her sternum as she takes deep, shaky breaths. She squeezes her eyes shut and turns her face toward the sky, allowing the fading sun to wash over her for a few fleeting seconds. Another shaky breath reassures her that she’s still there — her heart is still beating, blood is still pumping through her veins, air is still filling her lungs. The cool silver that rests beneath her sweat-soaked jersey and sports bra clangs lightly against the medal. For only a beat or two, she places one hand against her chest and feels for the ring. Sometimes — times like these — when it’s easy to feel like giving up, she can feel the ring against her skin and remember her reasons, remember why she chose life, remember why she has to fight.

As the celebration for Japan wears on, someone slings their arms heavily around Ali’s shoulders. Had she not felt the every emotion behind it — the heaviness of the lean, the exhausted sigh, the need for support — she could have mistaken it for a hug. Tobin Heath stands beside her, and there’s no need for a quiet smile or a fake nod of reassurance. That’s what Ali is most grateful for — there’s no need to pretend around her team. They are all experiencing the same defeat, feeling the same failure, hurting the same way. They have all just lost their dream as well. Nobody is going to clap her between the shoulder blades and tell her that they’ll get it next time and to pick her head up. Nobody is going to tell her what she doesn’t want to hear — that she has nothing to be ashamed of, that second place is really incredible, that she should be proud of how she played. Nobody is going to tell her “it’s just a game; you shouldn’t be so upset over a game.” They can all cry together. There will be no drunken celebration tonight for the U.S. Women’s National Soccer Team. Instead, they will weep for the end of an era…the finality of a dream…the failure of a silver medal.

\- - - - - - - - - - - - - 

_New York, New York. July 2011._

Ali has never felt like more of a stranger than she does deplaning in New York City for media two days after the World Cup.

Her silver medal is tucked away in her suitcase with no particular order or ceremonial caution. It found its home exactly where it landed when she ripped it away from her skin as if the silver was burning her chest.

She presses Jesse’s ring tighter to her skin, leaving a circular indention on her cool skin. A deep breath. A glance around at her teammates, who all look equally defeated and burned out.

Second place has never felt more like failure.

When the reporters ask how they feel, if they’re proud, what second place means to them, they’ll all lie. It’s what they have been conditioned to do throughout their careers as professional athletes. You tell the media what they want to hear, not what you want to say. They will say that they are hungry to prove themselves, eager for requital, aching for validation. They will say they were outplayed, that Japan deserved to win, that they were the better team — and besides all that, Japan has had a rough year with the tsunamis and earthquakes, and there’s nothing the world loves more than a tale of triumph rising from the ashes of devastation. They’ll say that there’s still more work to be done, still a score to settle, still something to be proved. They will say that they are proud of this team, that they are excited to move forward.

They will not tell the truth. They won’t say, _silver feels like last place. Silver feels like a punch in the gut and a knife to the back. Silver feels like we have let everyone down — ourselves, our teammates, our coaches, our nation, our families. Silver feels like failure. Silver feels like the end of the world. Silver is shameful. Silver is something to hide. Silver is not something to be proud of. Silver is failure. Anything short of a World Cup trophy is failure._

\- - - - - - - - - - - - -

_Washington, D.C. August 2011._

America is foreign to Ali.

This becomes more and more clear the longer she stays. Things that were second nature to her for years and years have become alien to her. Suddenly, she finds herself unable to adjust to life outside of Germany. She forgets that, unlike in Germany, the speed limit is not 50 km/h and that overtaking on the right side of the road is not illegal. People look at her like she has a third eyeball when they catch her making eye contact, because in Germany, everyone stares. She doesn’t make idle chit-chat anymore, and when people ask “how are you?” she finds herself getting frustrated because nobody actually wants to hear the answer to the question other than “I’m fine, thank you.” Because nudity is something embraced in Germany and avoided in America, she finds herself apologizing almost constantly to a stunned roommate or even her own brother. It’s like she has moved to a new country.

It’s funny that things that were once her second nature are now her nemesis. Her mother reminds her that she has to talk to her at the table. (She’s now used to eating in silence.) She can’t remember that it’s okay to run the dishwasher after 8 pm, and it frustrates Megan Rapinoe to no end when they share a room in Washington, D.C. A little girl at Whole Foods asked her mother what was wrong with the woman in line in front of them because she talked funny. She gets pulled over three times in two weeks for driving too slow, and when she finally gets a traffic violation, she is notified that she has to pay a fine AND her license is expired so she’ll have to appear in court. No “quiet rules” exist in America, and she can’t get a good night’s sleep for all the sounds of traffic and airplanes and her father awake watching _I Love Lucy._

She hasn’t seen Rikki since that awful night, the night that failure became a reality, and Maudie often calls mid-day in Frankfurt while Ali sleeps an ocean away on the East Coast, crying for her Mama and asking when she’ll be home.

The place that Ali grew up, the nation she represents, the country she has called home for her whole life…it feels like a foreign land.

All of it finds her exhausted…sad…frustrated…at her wit’s end…at Ashlyn Harris’s doorstep.

Ashlyn opens the door to her apartment late one night in early August. She hasn’t had the opportunity to see Ali in person since the World Cup. They’ve shared texts, phone calls, and a few FaceTime sessions, but Ali’s been busy with media, and Ashlyn has been with Washington Freedom, ready to rock and roll and finish out the season. One thing is certain, though — time has not changed that Ali is absolutely stunning, even with a permanent tiredness etched across her face, ever-present doubt in her eyes, sadness and confusion knit into her forehead, nor has it changed that Ashlyn loves her more than she should be allowed.

“Are you just going to stand there with the door open, or do I get to come in?”

Surprised by Ali’s teasing comment, Ashlyn swings open the door so hard it ricochets off the back wall and comes back to knock into her elbow. She quickly pushes it open again and motions Ali in. A quick glance around the apartment makes Ashlyn feel embarrassed. There are beer bottles on the scratched coffee table from when she was lounging on the couch icing her shoulder earlier, and there are dirty clothes everywhere. On top of that, her air conditioner STILL has not met the repairman, and it’s the middle of a D.C. heatwave. She wishes Ali had at least shot her a quick text message, but then again, that would be completely out of character for Kriegs, who is famously always late and typically unprepared.

“Come on in,” Ash stumbles, and it’s like she’s just seeing Ali for the first time all over again. She can’t collect her words or her thoughts. They’re all racing around like NASCAR in her mind. “Can I get you something to drink?”

Ali amusedly twirls around the glass bottle of Shiner and lets it crash onto the floor, empty other than a drop of amber liquid that pools onto the carpet and mixes with another stain — one that Ashlyn can’t recall if it’s mud or dog shit from the previous renters. “Do you have anything other than beer?”

“I have Pepsi, beer, or tap water,” Ashlyn answers slightly pathetically. “Or a half-empty Orange Fanta.”

She laughs, but the ease and simplicity of the statement again finds Ali feeling lost and alone, and as she stares at the beer bottle at her feet, she feels tear start to burn her eyes again. “Beer’s fine,” she answers, hoping the crack in her voice isn’t too noticeable.

Ashlyn is at her side in no time at all, her arms around her and her breath warm against her neck. She doesn’t ask stupidly, are you okay? because she knows that Ali is not. She wraps her up in a hug that she hopes isn't too tight or too foretelling.

“A silver medal isn’t the end of the world, ya know,” she finally says, guessing correctly what exactly is bothering her best friend. “I know it feels like it is, and believe me, I’ve been at points where I was going to give it all up and just go join the military because anything would have been easier than keeping on when defeat was around every corner, but you have to keep going. There’s too much riding on four years from now, on 2015, for you to give up. There’s too much talent and too much hope and too much expectation for you to quit because silver is failure. You have to keep working, keep practicing. You have to stay hungry for that dream. You have to remember that little girl who had a dream of winning a World Cup for her country, and you have to remember that she wouldn’t give up because she lost one time.”

“It’s not just that,” Ali all but whispers, knowing desperately that she should tear away from the embrace but unable to let go. “It’s everything. This isn’t home. I can’t do this. I feel lost when I’m here, Ashlyn, and I can’t find my way to the end of the maze and I can’t breathe and I can’t do anything right here.”

Ashlyn nods slowly. “You need to go home.”

“I need to not be here.”

“You aren’t tied down to this place, Ali. You can go back to Germany. If you need to leave to find your heart again, to remember your dreams, to find yourself, you can go. Nobody will say anything.”

Ali looks up, her eyes full of tears and pain and self-doubt. “But you’ll be alone here.”

“Me?” Ashlyn smiles. “I’ve been alone for a long time, Alex. You going back to Germany now isn’t going to put a nail in my coffin. We can still call, Skype, write letters. You’ll be back here enough for Olympic Qualifiers. Distance doesn’t mean anything when friendship means so much.”

“You’re incredible; you know that?”

“So I’ve been told.”

“Really?”

Again, Ashlyn laughs. “No, but I tell myself all the time.” She pauses and lets go of Ali. “I don’t want you to feel lost and trapped anymore. I think you should go back to Germany. Pia will understand. And I’ll see you soon. And when you’re ready, you’ll see that a silver medal is not the end of the world, it’s the beginning. Because every part of me believes that, four years from now, you and I will be in Canada together celebrating a World Cup win, and you’ll see that a silver medal made this possible. Without it you’d have never known that you couldn’t possibly face such heartache and misery and failure again. You wouldn’t have had the drive to never feel that another day in your life. You wouldn’t have known the work it would take you putting in or the trust you’d need to have in yourself and your team. And I personally can’t wait for that day.”


	14. still cheering for you.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sometimes, home doesn't feel like home. Ashlyn knows this better than she ought to.

_Frankfurt, Germany, and Satellite Beach, Florida. November 2011._

“I don’t know, I guess I just thought that I would come back here and I’d be me again. I thought that I would feel more like myself. I thought I would stop feeling lost and alone and like a stranger in my own life. You know, you think that coming home will make everything right again. You think, ‘if I just go back to the place I figured out who I was, I’ll find it all again.’ And then you realize that you either know yourself better than anyone else in the world or you don’t know yourself at all, and I’m starting to think that I’m the latter of the two.”

On the other end of the line, Ashlyn smiles as she stands in her childhood home in Satellite Beach, Florida, chopping squash for a Thanksgiving casserole. From across the room, her grandmother motions to her ears and mouths hang up the phone! Ashlyn nods and holds up a finger to tell her it will only take another minute.

“Ash? You still there?”

“Yeah. Yeah, I’m here.” Ashlyn rakes some squash into a pan and picks up another to wash and slice.

“And?”

Ashlyn can’t help but chuckle at Ali’s persistency. “And what? I thought I was just supposed to listen to you and occasionally say ‘mmm-hmm’ so you know that I’m acknowledging and validating your feelings and concerns.”

“Asssshhhlllyyyynnnnnnn.”

“Aalllleeexxxxxxx.”

She can all but see the dramatic eye roll Ali is giving her all the from Frankfurt. “Okay, okay. Fine. You want to know what I think?”

“Clearly. Otherwise you’re useless,” Ali replies plainly.

“Alright, smart ass. For that, you don’t get any of my grandma’s famous chocolate crinkle cookies next camp.” Ashlyn dries her hands on the nearest dishtowel and takes a quick look around to check for her grandmother before she takes the stairs to her attic room at a sprint. “I think you put too much on Germany. You thought going back to the place you discovered who you really were would help you get back to what you call ‘normal,’ but you forgot that when things change in your life, you do too. Since you were last in Germany, you have experienced complete and utter defeat.”

“Wow. Thank you, Aristotle. So well spoken and wise,” Ali answers with dry sarcasm.

“You know what I mean, Al. Losing the World Cup changed you. It changed the whole team, even those of us who didn’t make the roster. There are studies that show failure scientifically changes people. You fell short of a goal that you set for yourself, and self-doubt immediately came pouring in alongside determination. You can’t think that going back to Germany should have sent you spiraling right back into some pre-World Cup version of yourself. Things have changed; so have you. Looks like you’re back to square one, princess. Back to the drawing boards of Ali Krieger.”

Ali’s frustration is evident even across an entire ocean and, Ashlyn assumes, a continent or two. “Thanks for nothing, Harris.”

“Truth hurts, Krieger.”

“Thanks.” There is a hint of a smile in Ali’s voice, and Ashlyn thinks for a fleeting moment about Ali, seven time zones away, alone other than a three-year-old and insecure in herself and her abilities. “I’ll see you soon, won’t I?”

Another warm feeling spreads through Ashlyn’s stomach. _Six days._ “Yep, soon. But no chocolate crinkle cookies for you. I’ll give them all to Mittsy and LeP.”

“Ashlyn.” Ali’s words are whiny again.

“I kid, I kid. But for real, you’re going to have to earn those cookies.”

“I will do whatever it takes to have just one of Grandma Harris’s famous chocolate crinkle cookies.”

Ashlyn smirks in spite of herself. “Easy with the promises there. Wouldn’t want you biting off more than you can chew.”

“That’s how dedicated I am to eating at least one of those cookies, Ashlyn.” There is no hint of joking in Ali’s voice. “I _will_ have at least one of those cookies before that camp is over. Mark my words. I don’t care if I have to fight tooth and nail or do your laundry for a week or do a strip tease in the conference room in front of the entire team and staff. I will have at least one Grandma Harris cookie.”

“Okay, whatever you say, Killer. I’ll hold you to that, though. I would love to see that strip tease in the conference room.” Ashlyn pauses as she listens to Grandma yell her name downstairs, along with a few typical choice words that were meant to kick her into gear. “I’ve got to go, Al.”

There is a slight silence from Ali’s side before she says earnestly, “I miss who I was when I believed in myself.”

Ashlyn smiles softly. “You’ll get back there, champ. I know it’s been tough, but I’m still cheering for you.” She hesitates again. “See you soon, Alex.”

Silence is the only answer from Ali’s end. 

“I love you,” Ashlyn mutters seconds after she hits end, still staring at the lock screen of her iPhone. “I love you.”


	15. for auld lang syne, my dear.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I am terribly sorry if this seems like a bit of a filler chapter...I needed a lead-up to Ali's injury in the qualifier! New chapter already in the works and coming soon. Thank you all so much for your kind words!

_Vancouver, Canada. January 2012._

The new year rings in with promise.

They celebrate in a hotel in Vancouver leading up to the Olympic qualifiers, sneaking a bottle of champagne past Pia under Carli’s puffy winter coat and Ali’s supply of chocolate crinkle cookies past Dawn by putting them into a Nike shoebox. They sing Auld Lang Syne in Abby and Christie’s room as they watch the ball drop in New York City, and when the countdown begins and everyone finds someone to peck on the cheek, Ali slips out quietly onto the balcony.

Vancouver is deep rooted in snow and cold; they arrived a few days after Christmas in a wave of red white and blue and beanies. The lobby becomes overrun with U.S. Soccer logos, and the luggage trolleys are stacked high with black suitcases and duffle bags. Media is around every corner, asking them what they plan to do to make sure their redemption is found in London come August. (They say they’re working hard; they’re ready; they are focused on what’s ahead. They don’t mention that an Olympic Gold will not be their “redemption.” The only redemption from a silver at the World Cup is a gold at the World Cup in 2015.) The team overtakes the hotel in no time at all. They loom on every sofa, share every armchair, stare at their phones and talk over each other.

The new year has found the team more tightly knit than ever before. A sea of red-white-and-blue, they are never without another. The group seems more like a family than anything else. To outsiders, the bond seems unbreakable. Everywhere they go, they go together, arm-in-arm and wearing proudly the colors of their nation. It’s different here than it was in Germany. They are on the same page now, terrified of loss — of losing games, of losing the crest they represent honorably every game, of losing each other — and hungry for the chance to prove themselves, to prove that they deserve every medal and every trophy and every title that comes their way. They have become a family, the bonds tight and the blood running thick through their veins. Ali can find no other way to describe it than _home._ These women are her home.

And when she is with them, their laughter and chatter filling up a lobby; their company filling a room; their presence on every side of her at dinner each night — that is when she realizes that it’s different here than it was in Washington, D.C. It’s different here than in Frankfurt. She has found her home.

There are twenty-three of them in one hotel room, piled onto two double beds and strewn across the floor. Between Mittsy and Carli, all that remains of the bottle of champagne is the lukewarm liquid still bubbling at the bottom of one flute. A quiet hum of conversation lulls in the air; they are talking dreams and resolutions and hopes for the new year. It’s different from what’s typical when the whole team is together, laughing and trying to be heard over ten other conversations and wishing months of time could be spoken into a few minutes. Ali sits in quiet awe of them all, her family, her whole heart, and listens as they speak somberly of what they hope will come true in 2012.

“Here’s to a new year. Here’s to new beginnings, to new chances, to new people. Here’s to a year of becoming — of becoming who we are supposed to be. Here’s to a year of mistakes, because making mistakes means that we are learning more, pushing more, trying new things, changing. Here’s to a year of family, of these wonderful people we have in our lives and in our hearts. Here’s to _us._ Here’s to our year.”

Nobody comments on the fact that Abby has given this speech every New Year’s Eve for half a decade now. Nobody reminds her that every year cannot be _their year,_ because for the first time, they actually believe it. This could be _their year,_ because there has not been another they have believed in each other so strongly, wanted so fiercely, loved so deeply, fought so hard. There has not been another year they have wanted something so badly it physically ached, hungered so much for something, thirsted for the taste of gold between their teeth. This will be _their year_ because the poor feelings that accompany defeat also come alongside a deep want to win and redeem and succeed.

It’s long after midnight when they all head quietly to their own rooms after HAO checks to make sure the coast is clear — since that time in New York when Pia caught Ali and Ashlyn awake in the early hours of the morning, laughing and sharing stories, she has started to make occasional “hall sweeps” in the middle of the night. The only lingering signs of their party are the crumbs that have found home in the cracks of Christie’s bed — LeP and Yael have promised to hide what they call the “illegal contraband” (champagne bottles) in the trash in their room, where Pia is least likely to check — and the slight slur of their goodnight exchanges, sloppy hugs and giddy smiles and high-pitched promises to make this _their year._

The thought of calling Rikki and wishing her a Happy New Year only crosses Ali’s exhausted mind for a second or two before she reasons her way out of it. They’re fighting right now, anyway. Rikki’s on a “business trip” to Milan, as she has come to call her photoshoots that Ali knows are much more pleasure than they are business. Maudie has gone with her this time; she’s hired an au pair to travel with her. She didn’t give much reasoning other than the fact that Ali’s schedule is just as hectic as hers and Maudie doesn’t need to constantly be left with a neighbor or sitter. Ali has tried to ignore the fact that the au pair is a college student, a young, feisty redhead from Berlin who makes Victoria’s Secret models look ugly. Rikki has pretended that the au pair is not a young and attractive college student. Maudie has not refrained from telling Ali that she wishes _she_ were her mama and not Rikki. A call to Italy seems like a good way to go to bed angry.

Instead, Ali thinks to shoot Ashlyn a quick text message while Becky is in the shower. She doesn’t think twice about that. It’s all but second nature.

_For auld lang syne, my dear. Happy New Year :)_

\- - - - - - - - - - - - - 

_Satellite Beach, Florida. January 2012._

Her New Year’s Eve looks a lot different from the one being celebrated up north.

Ashlyn spends her holiday in Satellite Beach with her family, bouncing from her own childhood room to her grandma’s couch when her parents head out on a cruise they won from some random drawing at the local surf shop to an air mattress on her best friend’s floor when she gets a little too drunk one night. While she’d much prefer to be with her teammates in freezing cold Vancouver, she convinces herself that she’s happy to spend her days surfing and watching manatees swim. Rather than ski coats and beanies, she wears bikini tops and board shorts all day. She eats shrimp tacos at a tiny bar and washes them down with too many margaritas followed by too many shots of tequila followed by a drunken one night stand whose name she doesn’t remember the next morning.

Part of her is completely ashamed. This is not the woman Ali thinks she is. This is not the person she wants to be. This isn’t even the person she is.

The other part of her feels satisfied. She’s never been one much for instant-gratification, but it’s been working for her. If she wants to sleep until one in the afternoon, she does. If she wants to drink beer at nine in the morning, she does. If she wants to surf from sun up to sun down, she does. If she wants to listen to her body and ease the ache in her core, she does. Her body and the most selfish, wicked part of her heart are satisfied. She feels happy enough. It’s a good life, one in which she gets most of what she wants without question.

It’s not until she’s alone at night, shivering despite the warm ocean breeze that floats in through the open windows, that she feels deep and utter regret welling up in her chest. The silence and loneliness of sleeping alone on a couch, drunk and without much anyone who cares about what she is doing and where she is, eats at her long after dark. Long after the lights have gone down and the partygoers have left, she lies awake thinking about how pathetic her life has become. She doesn’t want to be the girl who sleeps around, who leaves a trail of heartbroken women everywhere she goes. She _isn’t_ that girl. She’s the girl who flirts shamelessly but is far too much of a coward — she’d call it compassionate to ease the blow — to do anything that could lead to something else. She’s the girl who doesn’t let people too close because she doesn’t want to get hurt by someone she loves. She is the girl who always wants what she can’t have.

New Year’s Eve finds Ashlyn sitting in a tiny, dark bar where long-haired surfers stand barefoot and shirtless on a small stage singing karaoke tunes like “YMCA” and “Wannabe.” She’s stirring the water in front of her with the tip of her pinkie, three shots in and already wanting to call it a night. Some of her friends insisted that she come with them to celebrate, claiming there would be free Hawaiian pizza and drinks. Those friends are now lost in a crowd that has gathered just a few hundred yards away on the beach, sitting around a bonfire and passing around a bottle of Fireball while singing old Aerosmith songs. Ashlyn is still perched on a wobbly wooden bar stool, sipping her water and ready to close out her tab so she can go take a hot shower and fall asleep.

She narrowly avoids the small brunette who’s been undressing her with her eyes all night and jumps into her beat up Jeep Wrangler seconds before the clock strikes midnight. There’s a moment or two that she considers texting Ali before she actually does it.

_For auld lang syne, my dear. Have a Happy New Year!_


	16. landslide.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Life can be random...cruel...mean...twisted. You need people to get you through those times when it seems easier to give up. You need someone to be your landslide.

_Vancouver, Canada. January 2011._

A desperate attempt to prevent a goal and a reckless tackle.

When Ali thinks about it, these are the reasons she finds herself sitting atop a crude and hastily executed examination table underneath the stadium seats at BC Place in Vancouver during half time of their qualifier against the Dominican Republic.

It was a cheap shot, one that Pinoe fiercely argued should be a red when no card was shown to Leonela Mojica, and everyone who was watching agrees. Ali normally isn’t one to show mercy on the field, neither in physicality nor in showing her opponents or the referees how she really feels, but she left the arguing to her teammates on this one. She wants it to make sense, the unsophisticated tackle that landed her flat on her back in the 40th minute, so she reminds herself that this is the first CONCACAF qualifier and they were already up by a startling amount of goals so it was natural for the DR to try and fend off another.

At least, that’s what she’s telling herself as the athletic trainer looks at her with a knowing sadness in her eyes.

“I’m sorry, Ali,” she says quietly. “We’ll order an MRI tonight, but…”

There is no need on either end for her to finish her sentence. Ali hangs her head and tries to fight off the onslaught of tears that threaten to betray just how alone and angry she feels.

She puts on a brave face and joins the rest of the team after the half, her armpits already aching from the crutches and the swell of an ice bag noticeable beneath her black Nike sweatpants. They take her lead and act more optimistic than any of them feel. Mittsy has taken her spot at right back, playing angry and seeking a revenge tackle on Mojica that Pia warns her against after she cautions a foul near the penalty box. A-Rod, who will end up scoring five goals before the game is over, promises a thrashing. And Hope, from where she is standing idly, unchallenged, on the other side of the field, gives her a reassuring nod. Hope, who could have planted an entire forest between the goal posts by the time three short whistles sound, is less than optimistic. She knows what a dangerous, unnecessary tackle like that can do.

14-0, and after Ali goes down like that, none of them can say they are sorry for the beating they gave to the Dominican Republic.

Ali isn’t at dinner. According to Mittsy and Stephanie Cox, Dawn took her to get an MRI somewhere deeper in Vancouver. It remains oddly quiet and heavy during the meal. They talk quietly about Ali, in a reverent tone as if she has died.

Pia pulls Kelley O’Hara aside after their team meeting that night. Nobody says it aloud, but they all know that Ali isn’t going to be on the Olympic roster.

\- - - - - - - - - - - - - 

The verdict is in early the next morning.

Ali isn’t at breakfast, either. According to Pia, the results of her MRI were far from what anyone wanted to hear — a torn ACL, MCL, and meniscus. The mood is tense and somber. They don’t talk — not about the Olympics, not about Ali — except to ask for someone to pass the salt or pepper.

Kelley O’Hara sits in her normal place with the forwards and midfielders, between Tobin and A-Rod, her eyes not leaving the plate in front of her. Nobody says it aloud, but they all know that the young striker has been thrown to the wolves.

A desperate attempt to prevent a goal and a reckless tackle.

That’s what ends Ali’s dreams of an Olympic gold medal in 2012.

\- - - - - - - - - - - - - 

There are three text messages from her older brother, two missed calls from her dad, and a voicemail from her mother and stepdad in Florida. There are countless tweets, Instagram comments, and several Facebook posts. She has a few emails from several major news outlets, ESPN Women and Washington Times and U.S. Soccer looking for statements.

She’s missed a FaceTime from Frankfurt, and there’s a Skype call from D.C. waiting for her.

Those are the only two people Ali cares about talking to — Maudie and Ashlyn.

Maudie’s call is the first she returns. A quick glance to the watch on her wrist tells Ali that it’s around six pm in Germany, right before dinnertime. She waits patiently for her laptop to connect to the hotel’s impossibly slow wifi, and before another minute has passed, Maudie’s bright face has filled the screen.

She’s too close to the webcam, and the picture is a bit fuzzy, but Ali’s heart immediately races with happiness.

“Mama!!!!” the toddler crows, her wispy blonde hair falling in her eyes and spilling across her forehead. “Hat ihr bein verletzt?” _Does your leg hurt?_

Ali can’t help but feel tears well up in her eyes as she smiles back at the tiny girl. “Nur ein wenig, Liebling.” _Only a little, darling._ “Ich werde bald zu Hause sein.”

Again, Maudie’s wide eyes flicker. “You’ll be home soon?!” There is a nod from Ali, and Maudie is seen jumping up and down wildly in front of the camera.

The call ends sooner than Ali would have liked, but the au pair swooped in out of nowhere and scooped Maudie up, telling her in German that it was bath time. Maudie scampers off to the tub after a virtual kiss to Ali, and the au pair explains in a heavy British accent that Rikki is at work. Ali says nothing, but the tone in which she emphasized _work_ is slightly suspicious. If nothing else, the FaceTime session reminds her of why she can’t wait to get home, and for once it has nothing to do with needing affirmation or touch from Rikki.

Another unsettling feeling picks up in her chest, and maybe it’s because she has realized that another person will never complete her and maybe it’s because she’s realized that Rikki is not who she thought she was. A fresh round of tears well up in Ali’s eyes as she waits for Ashlyn to answer the Skype call. All of her feelings are confused and jumbled up in her mind, and she’s caught somewhere between wanting the safe and predictable with Rikki and wanting freedom and fun with someone else. (Someone else, of course, being Ashlyn, but she’s not sure she is ready to admit that to herself or to anyone else yet.) She wishes she had a better understanding of who she is, what she wants, where her future is taking her, but things have only gotten more complicated since she went down in the game last night.

“Oh my God, are you okay?”

Her thoughts are interrupted by Ashlyn’s voice crackling through the speaker of her computer. She can’t see her best friend yet, but just the sound of her voice is enough to make her break into a 100-watt grin.

“Can you see me?” Ashlyn asks, finally coming into view. Ali can make out a bag of hot Cheetos in her hand as well as the fact that she’s not wearing a shirt, only a sports bra, as she lounges in bed.

“Yeah, I’m here.”

“Good.” Another smile from Ash. “I nearly busted a wall watching you go down, Alex. It was awful. I’m pretty sure I’ll get evicted soon for how much and how loud I curse at my TV every time there’s a game. Good God. I got another noise complaint, which would be funny if I weren’t actually scared I’ll be homeless by the time London rolls around, and…” Her sentence trails off as she takes note of the tears streaming down Ali’s face. “Hey. What’s wrong?”

Ali musters up a smile through her tears. “I won’t be in London, Ash. I don’t think I will, at least. I don’t think there’s any way I can come back in time. There hasn’t been an official statement released yet, but my knee is…well, it’s completely fucked. It’s all torn, blown out, completely done for. They said I’m out for six to eight months, and Pia…well, Pia’s Pia, and she looked cautiously optimistic about even that timeline.”

Ashlyn, ever the believer, shakes her head furiously. “I know you. You’re strong. You’re a warrior. You’ll come back from this in no time. You’ll come back, and one day people everywhere will regard you as the best right back in the world. Until then, you’ll work your ass off to prove to them what I already know — that Ali Krieger is a badass with more heart and more dedication and more drive than anyone out there. And if you need a break, if it all gets to be too much, you can come to D.C. and we will watch _Law & Order_ marathons and eat chocolate crinkle cookies and cry together, and I’ll play Fleetwood Mac and Bob Dylan and Ray Charles on vinyl until the sad music makes you happy again. And then we will win a World Cup together in Canada, where you will be esteemed the best right back the game has ever seen.”

She takes a deep breath before continuing on, seeing that Ali doesn’t look nearly as confident as she does. “I know it’s hard, Al. I know it’s no easy feat to make a come back from this. I know because I was one heartbeat away from giving up on the game forever after I tore my second ACL, but I had people in my life who weren’t ever going to give up on me or let me give up on what I love. You can’t let this take what you love. You can’t let it steal your passion. You can’t allow it to be the point you give up. I promise, I’ll be here whenever you need me. I’ll answer whenever you call, even if you’re in Germany and I’m in D.C. I’ll be a living, breathing reminder that you shouldn’t give up because of crappy luck, which Hope Solo does not believe in but I do. You can’t let a valley be the reason you never make the summit. You have to keep fighting in this life, because that’s what winners do — they fight. And you’re a winner. Not a loser. So please, promise me that you will come back from this.” She pauses again and offers a small smirk. “If not for yourself, then for me. I shudder at the idea of a back line without Ali Krieger.”

Ali gives a wobbly smile through her tears. “Why are you so wonderful to me?”

“Because wonderful people deserve to be treated wonderfully. Now I want to hear you say it.”

“Say what?”

“Repeat after me. ‘I, Ali Krieger…’”

“I, Ali Krieger…”

“‘Do solemnly swear…’”

“Do solemnly swear…” Ali repeats, her voice growing stronger.

“‘…that I will not let the back line go to shit…’”

“…that I will not let the back line go to shit…’”

“‘…and I will forever hold thee, Ashlyn Harris…’”

“…and I will forever hold thee, Ash — hey. Are we getting married or is this me swearing to make a hell of a comeback?”

Ashlyn remains serious and stoic. “Just say it, Krieger. Give in.”

“…and I will forever hold thee, Ashlyn Harris…” Ali echoes with her nose crinkling as she smiles.

“‘…as the most stunningly attractive, cunning, and hilarious goalkeeper on the United States Women’s National Soccer Team.’” She stares into the camera for a beat before adding, “‘So help me God.’”

Now Ali is laughing, her right hand raised reverently as if she is swearing on a stack of Bibles that this is the truth. “…as the most stunningly attractive, cunning, and hilarious goalkeeper on the United States Women’s National Soccer Team. So help me God.”

She breaks into an easy grin. “Good. It’s on record now, Kriegs, so you can’t crap out on me.”

They share a laugh before Ali turns serious again and says, “So you listen to Fleetwood Mac and Bob Dylan?”

“Oh, totally. Landslide is my jam.”

Ali can’t tell whether or not Ashlyn is joking, so she goes a bit farther. “The first person I ever truly loved listened to them when he had a bad day.”

Ashlyn nods seriously. “Whatever pulls you through the hard times, that’s what you should hold on to. Cling to what is good, right?”

“Right.”

Again, Ali looks off into space, out the window of her cold hotel room in Vancouver, and hears the sounds of her teammates approaching from the hallway. They’re happy and together, back from breakfast and ready to take on London together. She tries to push down the emotions in her chest, but she has lost before she even begins.

“Hey…if you need to go, I get it. You should be with them. They’re going into the Olympics without their number one, without their warrior and their right side strong side. Let them know it’s okay to cry too.”

She bobs her head once for yes. “Thank you, Ashlyn. I am completely undeserving of your friendship.”

That ends the call, but before Becky can unlock the door to their room, Ali grabs her moleskine from beside her bed and scribbles down a few words.

_you are my Landslide._


	17. afraid of changing.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _Well, I've been afraid of changing because I built my life around you..._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (prepare for a bit of sadness this chapter.)

_Frankfurt, Germany. May 2012._

Disappointed.

She can’t help but feel disappointed when Pia releases the Olympic roster and her name isn’t on it.

It’s only been five months, she tells herself, and she is not where she needs to be to play in an Olympic tournament in just a few months. Her goal was to have her knee at 85-90% by May to prove that she was healthy enough to be on that roster, one of those 18 women who would make the journey to London, but — despite a rigorous rehabilitation and training schedule that runs from nine in the morning to five in the afternoon and leaves her dead tired every single day — she’s still only at about 60-70% of full fitness. Pia hasn’t offered much on the matter. She has shrugged when the media asks about Ali Krieger’s return to the game and told them casually that Ali is young. She has lots of games in front of her, she’s a fantastic player, she’s a good healer — but she’s not up to Olympic Gold par yet. And then she emphasizes yet again that Ali is young and will get her chance.

Another young name that Ali expected to see on the roster has been left off, and she feels both frustrated by the lack of diversity in Pia’s lineup and comforted by the idea that she isn’t alone in being unnamed to the list.

Ashlyn Harris.

She has tried not to take it too personally that she didn’t make the Olympic roster. Her surgery went well, and she had been on a plane back to Germany only a few days post-op to start her physical therapy and eventually a training regimen to get back to full fitness. She’s been busting her butt to get strong and healthy again, and while she has accomplished almost every goal she has set for herself, she fell short. She respects Pia’s decision to leave her off, though it stings a bit when Pia doesn’t even call to tell herself. (It’s Mittsy one night, late, and she’s whispering into the phone like she’s afraid of getting caught; she doesn’t talk long except to rant to Ali that she’d have put her on the roster.) And she doesn’t dare talk about how discouraged she feels to anyone in Germany — Rikki has become increasingly distant, her teammates for FFC Frankfurt will only tell her that she has it all and she’s going to get her gold one day, and her family reminds her that recovery is as much mental as it is physical.

When Ashlyn’s name is not on the roster either, Ali could cry tears of happiness.

After an afternoon training session, with her arms full of groceries, her gym bag slung over one shoulder, a fine sheen of sweat across her forehead, and her phone pressed between her cheek and her shoulder, Ali uses her foot open the door to her apartment. The phone is trying desperately to connect across an ocean, and Ali waits patiently to hear Ashlyn’s voice, be it her voicemail or her answering the call. It does not occur to her that the apartment should not be so still, so quiet, so empty.

She has only just ended the call after leaving a message and started to put up the groceries when she hears a quiet voice behind her.

“I had Adrienne take Maudie to the park to walk Adolfo,” Rikki says softly, rising from the sofa with her arms crossed over her chest and her eyes tired. “Because I don’t think you and I are on the same page.”

Ali glances up from putting the vegetables in the refrigerator. She gives herself the once-over from her untied Nike trainers to her sweaty tank top and smiles at Rikki. “Mind if I shower off first? I stink.”

The hopeful glint in Rikki’s eyes begins to dull. She looks defeated. “She won’t be out for that long, Ali. Wir mussen redin.”

Her back is facing Rikki, and she closes her eyes softly and sighs. _We need to talk._ Those words have always been some of her least-favorite, because they never mean anything good. When she was young, it meant she was getting in trouble. When she was on the pitch, it meant she was about to get benched. And now, in her relationship, it can only mean one thing — this isn’t working out. She exhales and allows her shoulders to fall before she picks her head up and turns to face her. “Yeah. Okay, let’s talk. Just let me get the cold things put away.”

To her surprise, Rikki helps her finish putting away the groceries and even puts the peonies Ali picked up from the florist in a vase with water. The mood between the two of them hasn’t changed, though, and Ali suddenly finds herself panicking. She may not know much — what her future looks like, what she wants to do when her contract with Frankfurt is up, if she loves Rikki the way she should — but she does know that Rikki is safe. She has been her security blanket for two years now, since a month after she had met her son and kissed him goodbye on the same day, since she had been wandering the streets without a purpose at all except maybe to feel something rather than be numb and had stumbled across the woman who needed saving. She has not been her love, her heart, her anchor like Jesse was, but she has been there. She’s been patient and kind and understanding. In saving Rikki, Ali had been saving herself, too. She doesn’t know if she is ready to try life on her own.

Rikki does not know about Jesse, about the love the two of them shared or the son they have. She does not know about the faded Polaroid pressed to the yellowing pages of a black moleskine journal. She never asks about the ring Ali wears on a chain around her neck, about the inscription that she can never quite read, about the times that she is awake in the middle of the night weeping and staring out at the stars like someone has taken the very air from her lungs. She does not know why Ali is quiet and solemn every April 21, and she does not know why Ali hates Christmas. What she does know is that Ali is every bit as broken and lost now as Rikki was when Ali took her in. She knows that sometimes people are broken in ways that are beyond repair. She knows that, when this happens, there’s often no going back.

“Ali…” she begins slowly, reaching to cover Ali’s hand with her own.

That’s as far as she gets before Ali rips her arm away defensively. “Just say it, Rikki. Don’t lead up to it with all the theatrics. This isn’t a god damn Nicolas Sparks novel.”

Rikki can’t even pretend to be surprised by Ali’s words. She can’t act like she has no clue what Ali thinks she is going to say. With a deep breath, she looks at her with pain in her eyes. “I’ve been seeing someone else.”

And Ali can’t pretend that this confession hasn’t thrown her totally off-guard. She was expecting this to end, but she wasn’t expecting another person to be in the picture.

“It’s Adrienne,” Rikki admits in a meek tone, and Ali only feels like an idiot for not knowing it was coming. “You and I, we just…we were too far apart, Ali. Your busy schedule and mine, you on the road with your team all the time and me traveling for photoshoots… You in love with someone from another life. I can’t do it anymore, Ali. I can’t do it to you or to myself. I can’t pretend that we are okay, that I am in love with you and only you, that we are forever. I won’t. I won’t let you do it to yourself, because you deserve better. You deserve someone who can support you fully in all you do, who can understand why you hate Christmas and what it is about April 21st that makes you sad. You deserve someone who can hold you every night and erase all your fears and doubts, and that someone is not me.”

Ali doesn’t try to stop the tears of anger and disappointment that are streaming down her face. She is angry, but more than that she is embarrassed. She feels stupid for not seeing what was right in front of her eyes and for trying to force something that wasn’t ever meant to be. “I can’t lose Maudie,” she finally says in a shaky voice through her tears. “You can’t just take her from me. I love her.”

There is a contemplative nod from Rikki. “She thinks you hung the moon, Ali. She loves you too. But she is my daughter, and I can’t have people in and out of her life. You can write her letters, you can Skype her, you can send her birthday gifts and Christmas presents and Team USA jerseys. But I think it’s best if she stops thinking of you as her mother. I think it’s best that she doesn’t see you any more. It will only confuse her, to see you and have us not be together.”

“That isn’t fair to her or to me, and you know it. You’re being selfish,” Ali seethes through clenched teeth.

Rikki smiles sadly. “I may be, Ali, but I would rather her experience this disappointment now than have her wake up years from now and know that we stayed with each other out of obligation to her. I can’t have you using her against me as a reason why I should stay when I’m not happy and you clearly are not either.”

“Where are you going?” Ali hangs her head, ashamed of how small she feels.

“Adrienne has a home in Spain. I took a job modeling, and we have already enrolled Maudie in a small school there. We are going to be happy, Ali, and I hope the same for you. I hope you find happiness. I hope you find real love.”

Goodbyes have never been easy for Ali, but she manages to hold herself together until Maudie tearfully hands her the beloved stuffed dog Beethoven and promises that he makes everything hurt a little less, and if she is very very still at night, she will be able to feel her heartbeat against the mattress. She is left standing alone in her apartment in Frankfurt, knowing her dreams of an Olympic gold medal, a World Cup, a family, and real love are all just out of her reach.


	18. change is coming.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Could this be a turn in Ali and Ashlyn's relationship?

_Germany. June 2012._

The WPS has folded.

Ali reads the article from her balcony in Frankfurt while sipping coffee, eating freshly baked banana nut bread, and enjoying the warmth that early summer has brought.

Change is coming, both for the club players — the ones who are chock-full of talent but have been thus far unable to breach the barrier of the USA’s impenetrable, deep player pool due to age (too young or too old) or have not yet gained the experience to play internationally or who may have a few call-ups and caps under their belts but have not found their name listed on many roster announcements — and for her national teammates who have put their heart and soul into playing for club and for country and will now return stateside after London to find that home is no place for them, that they have nowhere to play despite their success, that even all the gold medals in the world could not save American club football. Some will leave their homes for places like Germany and Sweden and Paris, much like Ali had straight out of college, just for the chance to play the beautiful game. Still others will be unable to make that enormous sacrifice and will be forced to give up the game they love for the sake of family and future.

She reads statement after statement on the issue, from the WPS chairman of the Board of Governors who claims that there was no other course of action that could be taken, from Pia who remains nonchalant and focused on the Olympics, from Hope Solo who was part of St. Louis Athletica before it folded a year ago and says that she will consider where she will play after the Olympics when the time comes, from those who played for magicJack and “Daddy Dan” Borislow who Ali finds herself blaming in whole for the collapse of the league after reading that he is a crooked businessman who asked his players to call him “daddy” and bribed them against his corruption with threats of kicking them from the team. She pores over articles that analyze the downfall of the second women’s professional soccer league in the United States, starting with the lack of funding and the significant gap in interest between men’s and women’s soccer — despite the fact that the U.S. Women’s National Soccer Team has been significantly more successful than the men’s, as Heather Mitts boldly pointed out in a piece from the New York Times.

In fact, Ali gets so caught up in the news that she finds herself ten minutes late for her training session. Once upon a time, she had considered five minutes late to be on time, but living in Germany has changed her definition of punctuality. She hasn’t been anything but five minutes _early_ to things in years now, save for a few times back in the States when she’s found her flights delayed or her alarm mysteriously “doesn’t go off.” It takes her physical therapist and personal trainer by surprise, and she is more than eager to fill them in on the American soccer gossip. She would like to think that she’s interested in all the players who have suddenly found themselves unemployed, but she’s particularly worried about just one — Ashlyn.

It takes a whole day, but Ali finally finds the time to send her a quick text message.

_So are you a homeless vagabond yet, or…?_

Ashlyn’s response is fairly quick, which takes her by surprise considering it has to be the middle of the night on the East Coast by the time Ali sits down to have some turkey on rye for dinner with an ice pack on her sore knee and heating pad on her aching back.

_dude, so much to tell you. FaceTime?_

Only a short few minutes later, Ali dusts bread crumbs off her lap and smiles when Ashlyn’s face fills her computer screen. The picture is dark, but she can just make out the hoodie pulled up over Ashlyn’s ears and the city in the background. Horror momentarily takes over.

“Are you seriously already homeless?!” she yelps, squinting harder at the image that has overtaken her MacBook. Surely Ashlyn can’t already be on the streets only a day or two after the announcement that the league has folded.

“No!” Ashlyn laughs and takes her hood off before panning her camera to show that she’s hundreds of feet above the city. “I’m sitting on the fire escape outside my apartment, but I thought it would be fun to scare you.” She pauses, reaching for the bottle of water beside her, and grins shyly. “I was right.”

Another pause as Ali pretends to be angry allows Ashlyn time to stretch out further across the iron of the fire escape, taking in all the sounds of the city even this late at night.

“Alright, Harris, you’re currently unemployed. What is your plan to get your life back?”

“That is a _great_ question, and an important one, Ms. Krieger!” she replies enthusiastically with special _oomph_ behind her words. “And, rest assured, I _do_ have a plan to get my life back. The real question here, though, is what are we _as a nation_ going to do?”

“Ashlyn, I’m being serious. Stop answering like Mitt Romney.”

“The answer to this question is a simple one, really. The first step to getting my life back, to all of us as _Americans_ getting our lives back, is to have surgery and get the tear in my labrum fixed. The second step, which actually comes before the first, is to finish signing these papers that will contract me to Duisburg for the time being. Until America can get our shit together, our country will go nowhere. Three years ago, the WPS promised us hope; now I promise you change.”

Ali has to laugh at Ashlyn’s goofiness. Apparently she’s been doing some studying up for the presidential elections in November. “Thank you, Ms. Harris. Excellent answer.” She straightens and becomes serious again. “In all seriousness…torn labrum? Germany?”

“I said I had a lot to tell you, didn’t I?”

“Yeah. But that’s really a lot, Ash.”

“No different from you calling me last week sobbing inconsolably to ‘let me know’ that Rikki took Maudie and left with the au pair and that you are no good at being alone, leading me to believe that you were going to pull some scary shit and jump off that bridge right outside your window.”

“I implied no such thing!”

Ashlyn takes a long swallow of water and keeps her manner casual. “Not on purpose, maybe, but that was the biggest performance I have ever seen anybody put on for losing someone they didn’t even love in the first place.” She pauses again before correcting herself. “Scratch that. You love the kid.”

“It wasn’t a performance.” Ali remains indignant until Ashlyn gives her a look that says _really? give it up._ “Fine. Maybe a little. People are supposed to cry when they are dumped for the young, cute au pair, though.”

“Forget about it. She’s not worth your dramatics. The kid, on the other hand, and the puppy? I would cry over that. That’s some sad shit there.”

Silence fills the next few seconds as Ali absentmindedly tampers with a string hanging off the band of her sports bra and Ashlyn stares up at the stars with a heavy sigh. “I miss her.”

“You miss that piece of crap woman who broke your heart?”

“No. No, not gonna lie — kind of glad to see her go. I miss Maudie. I miss being someone’s mom. And I miss how loud it used to be around here. I miss smudged little fingerprints on my windows and bubbles on the bathroom floor and stuffed animals that I almost broke my neck tripping over. And I miss her little feet jumping on my couch.”

Without realizing it, Ali’s hands have floated to her neck and the ring hanging there on the thin silver chain. She toys with it absentmindedly as her eyes flicker toward the watercolor paintings Maudie had made for her and left hanging on the refrigerator.

“Take those down. You’ll only stay sad if you stare at them all day,” Ashlyn tells her plainly as she studies the anxious way Ali is messing with her necklace. “What’s the ring for?” she asks after only a brief moment of hesitation.

“Oh.”

Ali drops her chin to stare at the chain and the ring hanging between her breasts, brushing the band of her sports bra. For a moment, she looks as if she’s going to cry, and Ash regrets even asking. She’s about to interrupt and say that they don’t have to talk about that, but then Ali smiles at her with watery eyes.

“I was going to propose.”

“To Rikki?!?!” Ashlyn squawks, bolting upright.

She can’t help but laugh. “No, to Jesse.” And then she finds herself telling their story, hers and Jesse’s — a story that only a few have heard and even fewer know from beginning to end. She finds herself not even looking at the camera as she speaks, only making herself comfortable on the couch and settling beneath a blanket as the words tumble from her lips. Ashlyn doesn’t interrupt or comment, and though Ali isn’t paying much attention to the webcam, she studies her as she talks, her eyes not leaving the woman on the other side of the computer screen. Ali barely falters at all when she mentions a son, but even so, Ashlyn feels as though she is intruding on a private moment. Nobody on the team has mentioned Ali having a son. She doesn’t remember ever hearing that Ali had been pregnant to begin with, in fact, and it’s been a pretty big deal in the news when a female athlete announces that she is pregnant and also plans on returning to the sport.

The story ends before Ali can stop herself to think about what she is doing, telling someone she has known for just shy of two years what people she has known for the better part of her life don’t know. She finishes breathless and watery-eyed, unsure of where things go from there and seeming upset with either herself or the story. What feels like the worst part is that it was _natural_ to tell Ashlyn what had been painful to even write down, what had almost killed her to tell her friends in Germany, what had felt like being punched in the stomach to admit to Nadine and Sandra and Svenja, three women she still considers some of her most wonderful and close and true friends. It was _easy_ to share her heart with someone who’s an ocean away sitting on a fire escape and currently jobless.

“I didn’t mean to tell you all that,” she finally mutters, her eyes downcast. She has a far-off, distant look on her face.

“Hey. Alex.”

Ali glances up, and Ashlyn can see the tears that are brimming red in her eyes, threatening to spill over at any second now.

“I’m glad you told me.” Ashlyn’s voice is soft now too, matching Ali’s. “We aren’t meant to live this life alone, carrying things all on our own, having nobody to share the pain with. I feel honored that you told me everything you did, even if you didn’t mean to, and I hope you know that I will protect your secrets and your heart. What’s safe with you is safe with me.”

She manages a throaty chuckle through the few tears that have escaped and fall onto her cheekbones. “Not even my parents know. Not Pia either, certainly, and nobody on the team. The only people who know are in Germany.”

“Can I ask you a question?”

“Fire away. I’m an open book.”

Ashlyn grins. “How do you still look so damn good?”

With that, she gets a full nose-crinkling laugh from Ali. “It wasn’t so much work as it was time. I didn’t eat a whole lot after he was born, which was pretty unhealthy, but I was clinically depressed and never had an appetite. I ate a lot of soup because that’s what Nadine and Sandra and Svenja brought me. I had to work out and blow off steam because I found myself dangerously angry all the time. I ran a lot. Lifted lots of weights. Found a personal trainer who would work with me for little cost. Probably the thing that changed most about my body was my boobs, or maybe it was my hips. Both got huge. Sadness takes off a lot of weight, but I looked in the mirror one day and saw that it also took off a lot of years. I looked older than I was, looked at least 35 in my eyes. Football is what saved me. I had him in April, made national team camp in July. It was hard, but I knew I had to do it or I’d spend the rest of the year feeling sorry for myself and being alone.”

“You’re incredible,” Ash says, and Ali laughs. “I mean it. You are the picture of grace and strength and love and poise. You should be proud of what your life has looked like; where it has taken you. It may not have always been perfect, but it’s always been your story to tell. Don’t let anyone take that from you.” On a lighter note, she smiles. “I feel all inspired now, like I need to go rescue a puppy or run a marathon for charity or something.”

They share a giggle, and yet another comfortable silence falls before Ali speaks again. “When is your surgery?”

Ashlyn looks at the watch on her wrist and replies casually, “Oh, a few hours.”

“Ashlyn Michelle!”

“Alex!”

The gentle smile that spreads across Ali’s lips makes Ashlyn’s heart turn somersaults. “You’re the only person outside of him and my brother to ever call me that, you know?”

“Well then, _Alex_ , I’ll call you after my surgery, assuming I don’t die while I’m under the knife, ya know…”

“That’s not funny. Don’t joke like that.”

“Oh come on, it’s a torn labrum. If I die while getting a stitch or two in it, then it must really be my time to go.” She pauses, sensing that she needs to lighten the mood before she hangs up. “And if I do die, make the story cooler than surgery for a torn labrum. Say I was attacked by a shark or my parachute didn’t open while I skydived or something.”

Ali rolls her eyes. “Get some shuteye, Pinocchio.”

“You got it, Buzzkill.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey friends! I will try to get another chapter up tonight, but I am going to be without internet access until either next Sunday or Monday because my parents are taking our family to Atlantis in the Bahamas. It should be pretty interesting considering I have three nephews under the age of 8 and a niece who is two, but I'm hoping it will be fun! I'll try to write some so I only have to post them when I get back! Have fun and enjoy some summer!


	19. finally home.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> FIGURED I WOULD LEAVE YOU GUYS WITH THIS OKAY THX LOVE YOU

_Frankfurt, Germany. October 2012._

It was bound to happen sooner or later.

She is homesick.

And she isn’t sure how, but sometime between all the long days of training until her body physically cannot take any more, long nights alone in a bed that feels too big, and long months aching for the people she calls home, she has become burned out.

Used up. Defeated. Exhausted. Worn out.

Those are the words she uses when she calls her mother in tears like she hasn’t since her freshman year of college, shaking with each sob and unable to breathe or speak clearly. Her mother, of course, does as much as she can from across the world — tells her she is proud of her, she loves her, she misses her, she will be home soon. It hurts them both that she can’t be there to hold her and bring her chicken noodle soup in bed and smooth her hair as she sleeps, so her mother pretends that she likes having an empty house. She pretends that, after twenty years of raising kids, she can sleep through the night, stop worrying about what her son and daughter are doing hours away from her, and do something for herself, but she simultaneously wishes they were in her living room fighting over what to watch on Sunday afternoons.

She isn’t sure what hurts more — missing home or knowing that her mother misses her just as much.

\- - - - - - - - - - - - - 

_Frankfurt, Germany. December 2012._

She reads it in a newspaper after the first big snowfall of the winter.

There is a new opportunity coming to the United States for professional footballers. The National Women’s Soccer League.

She is still homesick, still aches for her mother, still hungers for home, but this news gives her hope.

It takes another few days for her to get up the nerve to do so, but she eventually requests release from her contract with 1. FFC Frankfurt.

Her heartbeat races and tears collect in the corners of her eyes. She feels her face grow hot despite the permanent, bone-deep cold in the air. The tightness in her chest finally gives way to shaky breaths.

She is going home.

\- - - - - - - - - - - - - 

_Miami, Florida. January-March 2013._

Everything is different.

Beautiful, but different.

She finds that it’s easier this time than it was after the World Cup. It’s easier to slip back into her old American way of life than it was back then. There are no speeding tickets, no awkward nude encounters with her brother or teammates, no sleepless nights, no slips in her accent. She hugs her mother tighter than she ever has before — tighter than when she had learned that she and her father were getting a divorce, tighter than when her brother had fallen hard into his addiction, tighter than when she broke her leg, tighter than when she had watched her mother get remarried, tighter than when she had lost her chance at the Olympics. She calls her brother just to talk. She spends evenings cooking for her dad and running with him to the Pentagon.

Pia left them in October, after one hell of a run — a second place at the World Cup and two Olympic golds — after she had resurrected the sport in their nation, after she had made them all superstars and role models. She’s going back to Sweden, and Ali figures they aren’t all that different, she and Pia — both needed to go away for a bit, find out who they were and what exactly their purpose was, and then come home. A win had been the way to send her off, they decided, and they did just that to show the coach who had saved them when the future seemed bleak and small for the team. They had serenaded their beloved coach with an off-key, emotional rendition of “You Are My Sunshine.” She had them lie down in the grass in front of a sold-out crowd and close their eyes. As was fitting for the coach, she sang for them. “Times Are A-Changin’” by Bob Dylan. “Leavin’ On a Jet Plane” by John Denver. And then she was gone. Ali hadn’t even been there to say goodbye.

It’s a new team, a new coach, new faces when Ali rejoins her family for her first camp since that dreaded day a little over a year ago. There’s a new atmosphere, too. Everything feels more tense, more cut-throat, more competitive. There are twenty-nine instead of the typical twenty-five in camp, and Ali finds herself lost the moment she arrives in Miami. She feels lost in the crowd, behind on the times, like just another in a sea of faces. Veteran and rookie alike fight for spots on the roster for the upcoming Algarve Cup. New talent and new tactics threaten the predictability and skill of even the strongest veteran. Every night finds Ali more exhausted than the one before.

Different, yes, but it’s not all bad.

There’s a pie to the face from Mittsy as a “welcome home Kriegy” prank.

They win two straight games versus Scotland in February, and it means more knowing that they beat the home country of their new coach Tom Sermanni.

It’s not until the end of February that Ashlyn ends her contract with Duisburg and announces that she’s coming back stateside to play for the Washington Spirit. Ali feels her heart soar when Ash points out that they’ll be playing on the same team rather than against each other as they did in Germany.

It’s still a relief when Ali sees her name on the roster for the Algarve Cup in March, and it’s an even bigger relief when they come out with the tournament title. She feels like she’s back in her groove, reclaimed her spot, a part of the family again.

It’s March when they decide that they should room together, and Ali finds them a townhouse in the heart of D.C. before another day has gone by. They find their lives suddenly intertwined. Ashlyn’s favorite TV shows are littering Ali’s DVR, and Ali’s purses and shoes overtake her own closet as well as the hall closet that Ashlyn had been planning to use as storage for her winter clothes. In the fridge, Ali finds green apples instead of pink ladies, and Ashlyn quickly discovers that Ali buys whole milk instead of two-percent. Their teammates joke that they don’t know how the duo will ever live together without killing each other, but they share smiles and roll their eyes at the comments.

And, Ali figures, it’s sometime between all of this that she realizes she is in love with Ashlyn Harris. It’s what keeps her from losing it when there is a gallon of Gandy whole milk instead of Borden 2% in her refrigerator. It’s what keeps her from deleting thirty-six episodes of _NCIS: Los Angeles_ from her DVR so she can record _The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills._

(It’s also what gets her a stern warning from the referee in their second game of the season, loving Ashlyn is, but she doesn’t mind. And if that girl would stop riding Ashlyn’s ass the whole game and the ref would actually call offsides once in a while, Ali wouldn’t have had to tackle her so hard.)

If anyone notices, they don’t say a word. And, she says to herself, that’s the way it should be.


	20. trick or treat.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> After a disappointing NWSL season, the girls are in Sweden to play for Tyresö FF. In which Ali is a terrible loser, Ashlyn tries not to think too much, and Whitney throws a masquerade.

_Washington, D.C. August 2013._

_I am a terrible loser._

_I am a really, really terrible loser._

_(you are gracious, polite, and sportsmanlike.)_

_And I know I have a flare for the dramatics, but I really had higher hopes than a disappointing eighth-place finish for our team this season._

_(you don’t know it yet, but I told Megan Rapinoe to fuck off when she body-blocked you and consequently scored the goal that ended our season.)_

_(she doesn’t know it yet, or maybe she does, but I may always hold it against her.)_

_(our season would have been over whether or not she had scored that last goal.)_

_I am a terrible loser._

\- - - - - - - - - - - - - 

_Stockholm, Sweden. October 2013._

It’s an accident.

At least, that’s what Ashlyn tells herself after it happens the first time.

(The second time can pass as an accident too. The third…fourth…fifth? Not so much.)

And maybe it really is an accident the first time.

It’s a big house, the one that they share with several teammates who signed with Tyresö FF in Sweden after the end of the 2013 NWSL season. In total, there are five of them living in the cottage-style villa that Ashlyn had found for them for their stint in Sweden. They all came to play for the Champions League for one reason — love for the game. After the inaugural NWSL season had ended, better for some than others (Ali and Ashlyn had a disappointing last-place finish with the Washington Spirit) they had all signed short-term contracts to play overseas. Two of them are playing to remind themselves of why they love the beautiful game even though it can be a cruel and unforgiving sport, playing for redemption from a brutal season back home. All five are playing for passion.

Sweden can be unforgiving in its football, its weather, and its storms.

Perhaps that’s why Ashlyn thinks nothing of it when Ali crawls into her bed the first time during a thunderstorm, long after the moon has risen and the temperature has dropped. She presses her cold feet between Ashlyn’s calves and hunkers down beneath the blankets, asleep again before Ashlyn can ask any questions. Wind howls outside the windows; the walls shake with ominous claps of thunder.

Everyone is scared of something, and Ali is scared of storms.

And maybe it’s an accident the second time too. There are five women under one roof, and peace and quiet are hard to come by. That’s why Ashlyn tells herself it’s understandable when, as their roommates all head out to explore the city on a rare day off, Ali climbs into her bed again for an afternoon nap and leaves her traces everywhere — long brown hairs on Ashlyn’s pillow, the scent of her pear shampoo on the sheets, hints of her vanilla lotion on the shirt of Ashlyn’s she stole.

(Their roommates either don’t think it’s strange in the slightest or choose to keep tight-lipped if they do. They have known Ali and Ashlyn long enough to not question the oddity of their friendship.)

Then it happens a third time for seemingly no reason at all, when Meghan Klingenberg and Christen Press and Whitney Engen go out for dinner after a game, and again for a fourth when Ashlyn comes in from a run and there she is, Ali Krieger, asleep and half-clothed in her bed. The fifth time it seems to already be habit, and Ashlyn tries not to think too much about it because she isn’t sure what this is or what Ali is doing or what this means. All she knows is that their roommates have most likely caught onto them, and by “most likely” she means absolutely without a doubt, because Ali doesn’t even try to be sneaky any more — she very blatantly and very indiscreetly falls asleep in Ashlyn’s bed every single night.

She isn’t sure, but she swears that one night, long after she has been trying to fall asleep and calm her racing heart, Ali presses a kiss to the back of her head and whispers, “I love you.”

\- - - - - - - - - - - - -

_Stockholm, Sweden. Halloween 2013._

The Halloween party is Whitney’s idea.

Of course it is, Ashlyn says to the others — stuff like this is _always_ Whit’s idea. When her four roommates argue that Halloween isn’t a big deal in Sweden like it is in America, Whitney remains adamant that they celebrate. And when Kling tells her that Halloween isn’t a “real” holiday, and if she were Christmas or Easter or even St. Patrick’s Day she wouldn’t let Halloween sit at her lunch table, Whitney acts as if she’s been punched in the stomach.

Despite their best efforts, the Halloween party is going on as planned.

_Whitney has reserved a castle for the masquerade._

Of course she has, Christen says to the others — Whitney never does anything halfway. When they find themselves standing in front of a small fortress of brownstone on the morning of Halloween, preparing to decorate for the party, no one can say they are too surprised. And when Ashlyn groans about the amount of cobwebs hanging from the vaulted beams inside, Whitney insists that they can stay — less decorating means more time to get in costume!

“I can’t believe she talked us into this,” Kling mutters as they sweep the wooden floors that desperately need to be sanded. “How many people did she invite? How many people really know what Halloween is here?”

Ashlyn smirks as she settles a black table cloth over the buffet. “It’s Whit. She grew up with two cool parents. Those kids who wore pajamas to school and brought Oreos for lunch and took ‘personal days’ just because and never had a curfew growing up? That’s Whit. Two cool parents.”

“And from what I’ve gathered, she invited all of Stockholm,” Christen adds while setting the tables with white napkins and sets of silverware.

From the entryway, there comes a small giggle. Ashlyn is surprised to see that it’s Ali, who has remained rather quiet about the whole ordeal.

“What are you laughing about, Germany? You’ve still got to come to this damn masquerade too,” she teases good-naturedly.

Ali jumps down from where she’s been perched on a ladder. (Ashlyn winces but doesn’t make any comments about her knee.) “Hey Kling, trick or treat?”

“Is this like truth or dare?” Kling answers suspiciously, her eyes narrowed at the place Ali stands.

“Just answer the question.”

“Dare,” she says decisively.

“Trick or treat, Kling.”

“Treat.”

Ali thinks for a moment or two. “Alright, this can be your treat — ask me to do anything for the rest of the day.”

It only takes a beat for a mischievous light to appear in Kling’s eyes. “Alright. Kiss the most attractive person in the room.”

And it only takes a second at the most for Ali to scamper over to where a stunned Ashlyn stands and place a chaste kiss on her lips. “Done!”

“That’s the most ridiculous game of trick or treat I have ever witnessed,” Christen tells them.

_Ashlyn would agree, but her head is still spinning from the feeling of Ali’s lips on hers._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> HEY GUYS! I'm back from paradise, and I had a fucking blast but it's good to be home. This is a slightly anti-climatic chapter, but I already have part of the next one written and I'm super excited to post it soon! It'll be more angsty than this one. Thanks for all the love!


	21. be careful out there.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, no real angst, just more entertaining to read. I am so glad to be back.

_Stockholm, Sweden. Halloween 2013._

_There’s a little saying your mother always left with you when you were going anywhere, be it down the street to the skate park or across the world to play soccer — be careful out there._

_You suppose it was her way of saying, I love you. She never was good with her words, not in the way that she wanted to be, and she was even worse with her emotions, but any time she would look at you with that certain pain in her eyes, squeeze your shoulders, and say to you, “be careful out there,” you knew you had no reason to doubt that she did love you. She might not have ever found her words and may still not be able to say what you know better than anyone else in her world, but she loves you. She always has loved you, always been on your team, always been your biggest fan. And you may never hear those words from her, “I love you,” but you make sure you say them every chance you get._

_It’s from your mother and her incurable sadness that you learned how many ways people say “I love you.” Hers was “be careful out there.” Sometimes it was “I made your favorite” or “I’m proud of you” or “remember a jacket.” There were mornings she couldn’t get out of bed because even the idea of facing the world and its dark entirety overwhelmed her, and those were the mornings she would hold your eyes a little longer in her own and remind you, “be careful out there.”_

_You feel that you are luckier than most, to have had the mother that you do. She might not have been at every soccer game or surf competition or spelling bee you ever had (that’s okay, you lost all the spelling bees anyway) but you understood even then that she loved you. You knew that she would be there if she could, if she didn’t have an incredible fear of wide open spaces filled with people and a heaviness on her heart that would never go away. She taught you that it’s okay to need a break every now and then, that you need other people, that just because you’re different doesn’t mean you are wrong. Your mother might not have been in the front row of your graduation with a video camera or even been able to say “I love you,” but she loved you in the only way she knew how — she protected you._

_You last went to visit her in July, when you were feeling discouraged and beat down by the game you love. She’s in a long-term care facility now, where there are nurses to administer her medication every morning and night and doctors to make sure that her incurable sadness doesn’t steal her away from you too soon. Your father was there too, and you took note of how tightly he holds her hand even when she barely recognizes who he is. She didn’t remember your name — she kept calling you Kate, and you know that Kate was her sister who left before you were born — but she looked happier than you can ever remember her being. She looked lighter in the eyes, like she was at peace with herself._

_And though she didn’t remember your name, she called out those words to you as you left that day — be careful out there. Not everyone is as forgiving as we are._

_You know those words best, those four words that mean I love you, I want you to be safe, I need you to come back in one piece…I love you. She’s never said them, not that you can remember at least, but you squeeze your eyes shut every now and then and you can hear her voice repeating those words to you. Be careful out there._

_The world you live in can be random and mean and cruel and unforgiving, and your mother wants you to stay safe. You know it best._

\- - - - - - - - - - - - - 

If the kiss has phased Ali at all, she isn’t letting on to it at all.

She turns side to side in the full-length mirror in Ashlyn’s room, smoothing the tight fabric over her body, and cranes her neck to check out her backside. Every movement in that tight emerald green dress demands attention. It clings to her every curve and muscle rippling beneath the satin as she turns, smooths, and turns again. Ashlyn would be lying if she said she wasn’t staring just a little bit as Ali strikes various poses in front of the mirror, popping her booty out and cocking one hip.

“Does this dress make my butt look big?” she finally asks, her eyes not leaving her reflection.

“I don’t think a fatsuit could make you look bad, Alex,” Ashlyn replies absentmindedly as she fumbles with the bowtie in her hand.

“I didn’t ask if I looked _bad_ ,” Ali says frustratedly, still smoothing the satin over her butt. “I asked if I looked _fat_.”

Again, Ashlyn rolls her eyes. “You look beautiful. You always do.” When Ali doesn’t seem satisfied with this, she sighs heavily and adds, “And your butt is perfect.”

A wide grin lights up Ali’s face as she turns away from the mirror to face Ash. “Perfect, huh?”

This elicits no response from Ashlyn as she struggles with the tie in her hands.

“Are you trying to knot a bowtie or make a noose?” she teases amusedly as she watches her clumsily attempt to make an even bow. “I thought goalkeepers were good with their hands.”

The tie in Ashlyn’s hand is thrown to the floor as she tosses her arms up in surrender. “Yeah, well, apparently not. There’s too much damn fabric for one small bow. This masquerade is stupid anyway. Nobody is going to show up and it’ll just be me and Whitney trying to make you guys have fun all night.”

Ali stoops to collect the tie and then straightens, her eyes softer now. “Here, let me help you with this.”

Ashlyn is seconds away from protesting before she remembers that she has never been able to tie a bowtie, and beside that, Ali’s right — the knot she had formed looked more like a noose than a bow. She holds her breath as Ali’s hands meet her throat. They’re gentler than she thought, but not as soft — they’re the hands of someone who works hard every day. The dark lashes framing Ali’s eyes flutter as she bites her lip in concentration.

“There,” she says softly, straightening the perfect bowtie and smoothing the collar of Ashlyn’s tailored white shirt over it. “You were trying to tie it like a shoelace.”

(Maybe she’s overthinking it, but it feels like Ali’s hand lingers too long on her chest and she holds her gaze a second longer than she should.)

“Sorry I went off on you,” Ashlyn mutters a few minutes later as she watches Ali put in her earrings and spray on some expensive perfume. “I’m just…I don’t know. I don’t know what to think about any of this.”

Ali secures the back on her diamond earrings and picks up her red lipstick. “Yeah, well, it’s in the past. I know you aren’t that excited about Whit’s party, but you should at least try to have a good attitude about it. She’s worked really hard and she’s super excited.” She turns up her nose like she’s angry and purses her lips in the mirror as she applies the matte shade. “And you have no right to lash out at me because you’re frustrated by a bowtie and your own lack of understanding.”

“I know.”

Her answer takes Ali by surprise. “You do?”

Ashlyn nods. “Yeah. I know. I took out my frustration on you because I…well, for some reason we always lash out at the people we are closest to, and you’re my best friend, Alex. I’ve been confused lately, and maybe I’ve done a really poor job of showing it, but I do love you. I’ve never had a friend like you before. I’m not sure what to think about the NWSL or Champions League or the national team or even my own family, but I do love you. That’s not confusing.”

_It’s only confusing that I don’t just love you; I am in love with you._

Ali drops her lipstick into her silver clutch and fastens it shut before she crawls as best as she can onto the bed beside Ashlyn and places her mouth dangerously close to the sensitive hairs on Ashlyn’s earlobe. “Well, for what it’s worth, I love you too, and I think you’re doing way better than you think you are. Give the NWSL longer than a season; it’ll only go up from here. We’ll be back home and no longer playing for Champions League in under a month. Sooner than later, you’ll be regarded as the best goalkeeper in the world. And as for your family, I don’t know them that well, but I know they love you. And that’s not confusing at all.”

\- - - - - - - - - - - - - 

_There’s never been anything that confused you more than love._

_It’s not the idea of love so much as it is the action of love. You have no problem with the idea — with the idea of giving yourself to someone, every part of you, even the damaged, broken, scary, embarrassing parts you’re ashamed of, alongside the best parts — but you’ve never been too good at the implementation. You get that from your mother, you suppose, and it’s not something you’ll ever apologize for. You are so much like your father in almost every other way that you don’t mind the one quality you inherited from her, even if it’s not ideal. You don’t know how to give yourself so wholly to someone who could break you in a heartbeat if they so chose. The idea is beautiful, and you have seen true love so you know it’s not just the idea that is breathtaking, it’s the whole thing._

_And it’s confusing to you, that someone could see every part of you and still choose to love you. It’s confusing that love will never be enough — never be enough to make someone stay, never be enough to save someone’s life, never be enough to make somebody whole. It’s confusing that you can’t choose who to love, and that you can’t love people out of obligation. It’s confusing that sometimes love is all people have, yet they have nothing._

_This means that Ali Krieger is confusing to you, because there has never been anyone in the world you have loved as much as you love her. You are confused by her in general, by everything she does, and you know you are reading way too far into it but you can’t stop. You want to make her laugh, hold her when she cries. You want to wake up to her every morning and be the last thing she sees before she falls asleep every night. You love her. You love her smile, her sleepy voice, the way she mumbles when she gets annoyed, the way she plays, her heart. You love how she gets buzzed after only a few sips, how her eyes light at two in the morning when she’s too excited to sleep, how she sings and dances in her car. You love her. You are in love with her._

_And you don’t understand it, but there’s a chance she is in love with you too, and guess what?_

_It’s confusing._

_Your mother always has told you to be careful — with your body, with your actions, with your heart._

_You know it best._

\- - - - - - - - - - - - - 

The moon has long-since risen when they arrive back at their cottage.

Whitney’s eyes are lit up with champagne and happiness as she unlocks the door. They have been standing in the cold for a few seconds too long, their breath hanging in clouds in front of them in the freezing air, while she fumbles for the key. Ashlyn is sure that she and Whit are the only two coherent enough to make a comment on the wait — Ali was tipsy after one glass of beer; Kling, who’d worn a cat suit onesie instead of dressing for the masquerade, had been hammered three songs in; and they had all learned that Christen was very clingy when she got drunk — but she’ll never kill her friend’s buzz. It’s been a long time since she’s seen Whit so happy.

“Thank you,” Whitney whispers earnestly as they stumble past the door with their friends leaning heavily on them for support. She eases Kling onto the couch and licks her thumb before wiping the eyeliner whiskers off her face. “I had a really good time tonight.”

Ashlyn winks cozily at her as she all but carries Ali back toward her ( _their?_ ) room. “I’d do anything for you, Engen. You’re my person.”

“Twisted sister,” Whitney answers, the corners of her mouth turning up at the Grey’s Anatomy reference. “And it looked like you had a good time too.” She pauses before smirking at a very sleepy, half-drunk Ali hanging off Ashlyn’s arm. “She had fun dancing with you.”

Something hot burns in the bottom of Ashlyn’s stomach. “She was drunk.”

“Drunk on you, maybe. She likes you.” There is little hesitation as Whitney trumps on. “I think you should go for it, Ashlyn. It’s been a long time since you’ve had someone, and she’s a good person — a really, really good person. And I saw the way you were dancing with her. You may not have known it, Ash, but those were some very dirty moves.”

Ashlyn shakes her head and brushes her friend off as she helps Ali to her room. They are almost to the door when Ali suddenly stops and places one hand on Ashlyn’s shoulder to steady herself.

“Whoa there, Germany. We sobering up now?”

Ali nods heavily and reaches down to take off her heels, something she should have done a long time ago, when she first felt the ache building in the arches of her feet. She lets out an involuntary moan. “God.”

“Yep. Let’s get you to bed,” Ashlyn chuckles, and Ali tries to ignore the fire burning in her bones.

“Unzip me?” she mumbles, tired but not tired enough to not know exactly what she is asking.

“Of course, princess.”

A shiver runs down Ali’s spine and makes all the tiny hairs on her neck stand up when Ashlyn’s fingertips brush over her skin. Suddenly she is fully aware of the fact that she is not wearing a bra or suitable underwear, instead a lacy thong, and tries to gasp out this information before Ashlyn sees her all but completely naked.

“Ashlyn, I — you — I’m…” she manages, and it only makes Ashlyn pause for a second or two before the dress slides down her whole body.

Ali is not near drunk enough to not turn bright red when Ashlyn busts out laughing at the sight before her.

“You want a tee shirt and some boxers to sleep in?” she finally chokes out, her cheeks flushed with laughter as she stands doubled over behind Ali.

“No.”

With this, Ali turns to face Ashlyn, still only wearing the lacy black thong. She slowly pulls her hair down from its glamorous bun and shakes it, leaving wisps framing her face and fanning out in every direction. Her eyes are heavy-lidded and dark with lust, and she blinks earnestly.

“Alex, I…”

Ali places one finger on Ashlyn’s lips to silence her. “Do you remember when we first met?” (When Ashlyn attempts to speak, Ali shakes her head and implies that Ashlyn is not supposed to talk, just nod yes.) “I noticed you staring, and I told you that I looked better naked.” Ashlyn nods weakly, feeling all of her resolve crumple. “And I didn’t tell you then, but I was in love with you. I am in love with you.” Again, she nods. “Please do this for me. I need you.”

\- - - - - - - - - - - - - 

_You never have been one to deny yourself what you want._


	22. don't want to lose you.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I think this is what we have all been waiting for.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> SMUT ALERT. I’m not usually one to write smut but I figured this occasion called for me getting outside my comfort zone. Enjoy. I don’t know if it will happen again.

_Stockholm, Sweden. November 1, 2013._

_You never have been one to deny yourself what you want._

\- - - - - - - - - - - - - 

_It always was your mouth that got you in trouble._

In a tangle of bedsheets and limbs, Ashlyn wakes and is surprised to see that she is not alone. Her heart begins to hammer inside her chest again. Light is beginning to flood in through the windows, and though her roommates were all drunk and tired the night before, Ashlyn knows them to be quick healers, and she’s certain they’ll be up soon. She doesn’t want to be caught in this precarious position, but there’s a heavy head on her arm and one leg tossed over hers. Dead weight. Her heartbeat regulates. Everything that Ash thought to be true of Ali — she’s flighty, Heather Mitts had warned her; she can’t give you what you need, Hope had cautioned; she’ll never be in love with anyone the way she was with Jesse, Becky and HAO had shared — she has done a pretty good job of shattering. Ashlyn thought she knew her best friend inside and out, like the back of her hand — knew her quirks, her shortcomings, her passions, her personality — and in a single night Ali had changed it all.

_Ali is sweet and timid on the outside, an open book. One look at her eyes and you can see everything she’s feeling. The red of her cheeks will always betray her embarrassment or anger, and the turn of her mouth will never deny her. She’s cautious in how she handles people, bad at asking for help, and sometimes too quick to speak whatever is on her mind. She’s kind, but she’s also a little closed off._

Ali is a different person with Ashlyn, and it’s not because of some facade she’s putting on for her or for the rest of the world. It’s like she can flip a switch and go from the girl next door to…to something Ashlyn can’t quite name. She becomes greedy and dominant, urgent and wild. All timidity is gone. What was seen as beautiful or even cute becomes sexy, sexier than Ashlyn will ever be able to say no to, and she’s talkative. Which Ashlyn knew, but damn. The girl can talk. And for as much as she had greatly enjoyed their night, she doesn’t know what to think about it. Confused. Again. An image of Ali waking up and immediately turning bright red, trying to pretend this never happened, becoming cold and distant to her even as a friend or teammate, runs through Ashlyn’s head. She shivers and pulls the sheets up to her chin.

Love is confusing.

\- - - - - - - - - - - - - 

_It always was your mouth that got you in trouble._

_This time was no exception._

_You’re bad at saying no. You always have been. You’re more of a “yes” girl, always willing to take on the challenge, always hoping your “yes” will help someone out, always unapologetically wanting what you want._

_And you want her._

_You want her as she stands naked in front of you, and you want her as she begins unbuttoning your tailored white shirt, and you want her as she brushes her thumb across your cheekbones and tugs on your tie and whispers “take this off for me” in your ear. You’ll always want her, you tell yourself — you’ll want her when you win and when you lose. You’ll want her at World Cups and Olympics and NWSL tournaments. You’ll want her in a few years, when there are lines around her eyes and when she’s got a tiny newborn in her arms and when she is yelling at you in the kitchen because you forgot to pick up the dry cleaning. You’ll want her when you’re both old and forgetting things, and even if your mother’s disease decides to come for you too, you will never stop wanting her._

_She is beauty._

_Not, she is beautiful, but…she is beauty. It’s a difficult sight to forget, the way her eyes light up even through the darkness, the curve of her mouth, the slope of her jaw, the curtain of dark hair that brushes her neck, the soft scar on her knee that you kiss so tenderly it makes her gasp and pull you closer. She’s beauty, all of it — she’s the sunset over Satellite Beach, the tide rising at night, a sky full of stars, summer’s last breath, winter giving way to spring._

_You remind her of that as she pushes you to the mattress._

_“You are beauty.”_

_A small smirk appears on her lips and she says cockily, “Already losing the ability to form sentences, Florida?”_

_You are not, and you slow your breathing enough to look straight into those eyes that hold years of pain and doubt masked by something you can’t quite make out. “No. I don’t mean, you are beautiful. I mean, you are beauty. You are the city at night, rain on the windows, Christmas morning, the first sunrise of summer.”_

_The smirk disappears from her mouth, and for a heartbeat you fear you have scared her away, made the moment too serious, said too much like you always do. Then her hips are pressing you against the boxspring mattress, straddling yours as you try to catch your breath, and her eyes are darker than you have ever seen them. She is daftly — clumsily — tugging at your waistband, still uncoordinated enough from the alcohol that her hands aren’t working the way she wants them to and she can’t get your pants unbuttoned. Her lower lip is bit in concentration, and you begin to worry that she will draw blood from thinking too hard._

_“Here.”_

_Your voice is softer than you intended, and it barely catches her attention as you remove her hands from your abdomen and replace them with your own. The motion is practiced, swift, and easy. You kick your pants off and, with them, your Calvin Klein’s._

_She picks up exactly where she left off, her fingertips hungrily tracing your tattooed ribs and her tongue doodling figure eights across your throat. You can feel the rise building throughout your whole body, making it hard to breathe, making it hard to even see straight. The heat in her cheeks from the beer and the temperature in the room is radiating off her entirety now, from her forehead down to the warmth of her toes pressed into your calves. You rise up to capture her lips in yours, and she places a hand on your chest to gently push you back down._

_“I love you,” she mumbles, her hands raking your back, and you take her moment of rest as a chance to flip your positions._

_Now you are where you are most comfortable. You are in charge. She is at your beck and call, at your fingertips, at your mercy. You push your hair over one shoulder and lick your lips, swallowing hard. You don’t remember it being this hot in here, and you certainly don’t remember ever being so taken aback when it comes to sex, but you aren’t going to let her know that you are actually trembling (with desire, with uncertainty, with fear) when one hand goes to her breast and the other pulls off her lacy black thong._

_“Is that okay?” you whisper into her neck._

_She doesn’t reply, but the small whimper that escapes her lips is answer enough for you. You flick your tongue over her earlobes and grin at the sharp gasp she gives at the contact, only encouraging you even more as you trail your hand down from her breasts to her thighs. There is no question asked, but you look into her eyes for a beat or two and wait for her to nod her approval. Her chest is already heaving with every breath as she frantically bobs her head up and down._

_“Please,” she mutters, arching her hips toward you for more contact._

_You don’t need anything more from her — you have been holding out on yourself for far too long. There are no plans to drag this out or tease her at all. You ghost over her for no longer than a second, and she gasps again._

_“You’re wet,” you whisper as you run one finger through her folds. “Really wet.”_

_She answers with a long moan and bucks her hips to meet your hand again. Not that you need any encouragement, but you do smile at her reaction to your touch. Without warning, you slip two fingers into her. She yelps lightly as her eyes flick open and find yours._

_“All for you,” she manages to grit out through clenched teeth, and you feel the warmth building again between your own legs._

_The thought to tease her runs across your mind for a second at most, but one look at her eyes already screwed shut and you erase the idea from your head._

_Most everything about Ali Krieger has taken you by surprise, starting with the first words you heard her speak, and this is no exception. You don’t know if it’s because she’s drunk, but she’s wild. The stamina she displays on the field carries over to the bedroom. You begin to lose your breath as you curl your fingers deeper inside of her, and though there is a fine sheen of sweat across her forehead, she seems to be miles ahead of you as far as how much she can take. Her hips rise to meet your fingers with an energy and a need that you find to be curious as well as sexy. As you add a third finger, just to see what will happen, and rub slow circles over her clit, she begins spewing words that you have only ever heard her use on the pitch, and it only serves to encourage you more._

_The least surprising thing of the night is that she is loud. When you bring her to the edge and decide in the moment that you made the right choice — there will be no teasing — she digs her fingernails into your back and pulls you closer, and the easy whimpers and slew of obscenities that she breathes into your neck cannot be masked. She chants your name over and over in a high-pitched moan, “Ashlyn…Ashlyn…Ashlyn…” And those words that send you over the edge as well, “I need you, please.”_

_The thought of your roommates doesn’t even cross your mind. You know she was loud, you were loud, and they may be drunk but they aren’t dumb, but you don’t care. You have your girl. You are in love. You don’t care._

\- - - - - - - - - - - - - 

Ali begins to stir beside Ashlyn a few moments later, the sunlight tracing the patterns of the tree branches outside onto her bare spine. Ashlyn can’t resist pressing soft, ghost kisses to the slight bruises she left across her shoulders and collarbones before she wakes. She isn’t sure, but she doesn’t know if this moment will ever happen again. She screws her eyes shut and tries to push it out of her mind until she hears that husky mumble from beside her.

“Good morning.”

Ashlyn can’t help it — she breaks into a wide grin and presses a gentle kiss to the top of Ali’s head. “Good morning, sleepy head.”

She takes a few seconds to adjust to the light before her eyes drift to Ashlyn’s slightly chapped lips and back to her bright eyes. “I didn’t think you’d be here when I woke up,” she confesses.

“Why would you think that, baby?” Ashlyn says before the pet name can even be considered.

It makes Ali grin. “I thought you’d feel bad, like you took advantage of me or like I wouldn’t want to be with you when I was fully sober. I thought you would bolt because Hope says you aren’t really the type to commit to a relationship, and that’s what I want with you at this point in my life — a relationship. I thought you would think I only said those things and did those things because I was drunk.” She lets her eyes flicker to Ashlyn’s bare chest, covered by the thin sheets. “I still want you, though. I still love you. I still need you.”

"Well, that's a relief."

"So are you going to ask me?"

Confusion crosses Ashlyn's face. "Ask you what?"

Ali rolls her eyes dramatically. "Well, I typically don't sleep with a woman who isn't my girlfriend, and I certainly don't have sex before the first date."

"Oh."

"Sure, I'll be your girlfriend. The logistics we can work out later. I don't want everyone knowing our business, Ashlyn. I'm not ashamed to be with you, but the rest of the world already knows enough about my personal life. I want you all to myself for a while."

Ashlyn gathers her into her arms and sighs. “I'm all yours, baby. I don’t want to lose you, Alex. Ever.”


	23. new world.

_Washington, D.C. March 2014._

_The first time someone points it out, you almost can’t contain the joy leaping within your heart._

_“Happiness looks good on you, Ashlyn.”_

_You’ll forever remember the day Crystal Dunn told you those words as you both left the locker room after an NWSL preseason scrimmage. It’s March, and though Crystal is new to the league, she’s no new face to you. She’s been a teammate for months now, a constant face on your backline with the national team, and you’ve found yourself frequently encouraged and lifted up by the young player’s presence. It’s rare to find someone so young, so full of talent, and still so humble and gracious. She’s every bit as down-to-earth off the field as she is on — she’s a hopeless encourager, a brilliant advice-giver though she’s still a kid in your eyes, and a forever friend._

_Maybe she notices things that others don’t simply because she spends so much time with you (she moved in with you and Ali at the beginning of preseason, and she’s normally the one who stays after training with you for things like film or conditioning or extra lifting), or maybe she just cares more about people than most, but she picks up on how happy you’ve been since your return from Sweden. She may not know exactly what it is that is making you so happy — she has some idea, surely; she has to — and if she does know exactly what it is, she doesn’t ever mention it to you. And since she’s not one to let a word of encouragement or a compliment go without being said, she catches you as you both head to your Jeep after the scrimmage, tired and sore and hot and sweaty._

_Happiness looks good on you._

_Months with Ali go by much quicker than you’d like them to. When your contract in Sweden ends, you both choose to come back stateside — a choice you each made individually, agreeing that it was too soon to follow the other across the world just because you were in love even though you both knew that you would follow each other to Saturn if that’s what it took — instead of extending your stay to try and win the UEFA Championship like Whit, Kling, and Christen. You move back into your D.C. townhouse and make it your job to make the place home again, and a few weeks later, you have minor knee surgery — just arthroscopic, nothing that will keep you down for more than a few weeks, as you remind Ali who insists on practically being your in-home nurse._

_There’s a new baby on the national team. A-Rod had a son in August and returns to the national team in November in preparation for NWSL season. For weeks, it was all you heard about from Ali when she returned after the two-week-long camp in December. She couldn’t stop talking about baby Ryan, how he was a bad sleeper but he was always good when she held him, how he was so chubby and sweet, how he looked so much like A-Rod. The way her eyes lit up when she mentioned Ryan made your heart beat faster and your stomach flutter. Sometimes, if you’re feeling brave, you can imagine your own children with her some day — chubby-cheeked, doe-eyed, chatty, happy little baby Alis who are passed around camps and learn to walk on the pitch you play on and have over twenty aunties who talk about them like they’re their own._

_You spend Christmastime together in Florida. As far as you know, none of your teammates think anything of it — your parents and grandparents still live there, and her mother and stepfather have taken up residence further south, just outside of Miami. For all they know, you ended up on the same flight to different places, on your way to spend Christmas with your own families and not together. It’s Christmas Eve when you both make the trip from Washington Reagan to Miami, and she falls asleep on your shoulder halfway through the flight. Outside the baggage claim, her mother waits excitedly with a cute little handmade cardstock sign that reads “Welcome Back to the Sunshine State, Ashlyn and Ali!” She hugs you without thinking twice, and she and Ali walk arm-in-arm to the Land Rover while chatting excitedly like schoolkids._

_You find the rest of Ali’s family just as eager to meet you, and Debbie is ecstatic to introduce you to everyone as “Ali’s girlfriend, Ashlyn Harris — isn’t she just the cutest thing ever?!” They take you with them to Christmas Eve Mass, and Kyle explains that, even though they aren’t religious, it’s a tradition to go to the Christmas Eve services before heading out for a seafood dinner. You aren’t too interested in what the priest has to say — it’s the same story you’ve heard every Christmas Eve for 28 years now — so you watch Ali the whole service. She seems more invested than Kyle and Rick, who are playing tic-tac-toe on a scratch sheet of paper, and less emotional than Debbie, who nods emphatically every time the priest speaks, and you are enamored by beauty in the candlelit church. Afterward, when you all end up at a random seafood grill on the pier at Nikki Beach, it seems more natural than anything in the world to listen to Kyle crack crude jokes and toss casual sibling rivalry between the Krieger kids. (Kyle insists that he is your favorite Krieger, as does Debbie, and this sends Ali into an adorable pout for the next twenty minutes until you slide your hand further up her thigh beneath the table and whisper in her ear that no other Krieger will get this treatment tonight.)_

_Ali and Kyle still write letters to Santa Claus. Apparently Debbie does that thing where she warns her children, “If you stop believing, he stops coming!” They’re in matching Christmas onesies that their grandmother found them last Christmas — probably from Walmart, Ashlyn guesses — and the slightest bit buzzed from Ken’s famed eggnog punch while they set out sugar cookies and hot chocolate for “Santa.” Kyle’s letter is short and to the point, complete with a few choice words about the Android phone he received from “Santa” the year before and how he wants an iPhone this go-round. Ali’s is sweet and poetic, thanking “Santa” for the plane tickets home and for the best gift ever — love. She drapes herself over your lap as you settle onto the couch with Kyle and Debbie and Rick to watch It’s A Wonderful Life, and when you look down fifteen minutes into the movie, she’s asleep — much like Ken, who went back to his hotel room after dinner, she has the ability to fall asleep any time, any where._

_You know Christmas Eve holds a different meaning for Ali than it does for most everyone else, and you don’t say anything when you wake up to her crying shortly before midnight. Instead, you hold her as she shakes and kiss the back of her head, reminding her that she chose life — reminding her that Jesse is probably so happy that she is in love right now, reminding her that you won’t leave her like he did, reminding her that tomorrow will be better. She thanks you a few hours later when you wake up yet again to her taking your pants off, and when you weakly protest that her mom is only a few doors down and specifically said that one of her rules was NO SEX IN MY HOME UNLESS YOU ARE MARRIED, she puts one finger to your lips to silence you while simultaneously slipping two inside of you._

_On Christmas Night, you make the three-hour drive north to Satellite Beach to visit your family with her in your front seat. She’s in charge of the music, and for three hours all you feel is complete and utter happiness. It’s dark outside by the time you even leave her mother’s house, but you have never felt more alive and energized. You dance and sing along to One Direction, the Spice Girls, Michael Jackson, and some old rap that Ali knows every word to. You pull over along the interstate in West Palm Beach to get some food truck tacos, and a quick dinner stop turns into an hour when she discovers a live band playing one block over. You’ve learned that Ali feels every emotion to its most extreme, and you’ll never say no to that nose-crinkling smile she gives you. When you pull up outside your quaint beach home, your ribs ache from laughing and your jaw is stiff from smiling._

_Your family is not quite as tidy, well-to-do, or learned as hers. Your grandparents own a surf shop on the beach, with your brother renting out boards and wetsuits and surf lessons all year while your grandfather works with his hands in the store, keeping the facility as nice as it can be, and while your grandmother runs the attached diner. Your father grew up here too, landscaping and chasing waves and warning people about hurricanes that were coming. And your mother grew up here too, pregnant with your brother before she graduated high school and going on to be an artist. You are silent when you first put the rental car into park in the same ruts you used to park your beat-up Jeep in when you came home late at night from practice or a game or the beach, and she grabs your hand reassuringly. You start to worry less about what she will think of them and what they will think of her._

_What your family lacks in wealth, they make up for in love. It’s loud the second you enter through the front door. Your brother is the first to see you, and with a beer in his hand and his toddler son on one knee, he yells your name in a booming voice from across the living room. Your sister-in-law comes in from the kitchen with a plate of raw veggies and gives you a warm hug, and your grandma — ever the proud grandmother — says hi to Ali before she even acknowledges you. Your grandfather opens a tin can of Cubans and offers one to everyone. Before you take your cigar onto the beach with the men, you cast a look over your shoulder. Ali is knelt down near where your mother sits blankly in her wheelchair, smiling and talking with her like there is nothing at all different about her. Emotion floods your chest. It’s different with her than it’s ever been with anyone else. She belongs here._

_It’s long after midnight when you all finally get to sleep, after hours of seafood on the beach and present opening and family stories and a mock MMA wrestling match between you and your brother — you won, though he claims it’s only because he has a rotator cuff injury from high school — and she crawls into your childhood bed right beside you. Your family is fun-loving and tight-knit, and you have each other’s back no matter what. More than anything, you can see it now, that it wasn’t a bad way to grow up, that money is not near as important as love, that family is far deeper than blood. She has seen it too, the special bond of the Harris family, and you wonder if she might someday be a part of it._

_She asks you a million questions, as is her curious nature. Nestled against you in the queen-sized bed in your attic room, her head resting in the crook of your arm, she mumbles question after question that you gladly answer. She asks about your grandparents, about your nephew, about Chris. She listens to stories about your childhood. “Was your mother always like this?” she finally whispers into your shoulder, pressing a soft kiss to your collarbone in case she has hurt your feelings or been too straightforward._

_Staring up at the sloped ceiling and the plastic glow-in-the-dark stars you arranged there when you were 12, you sigh and pull her closer into your side. “She’s always been sick,” you tell her, “for as long as I can remember. She wasn’t the mom who brought orange slices to half time of kiddie soccer games or handed out CapriSuns or made the tunnel for us to walk through. She couldn’t get out of the house for surf competitions or afternoon skate park rides, and she’s seen me play soccer once in person, and that was in high school — my last game.” You pause, thinking about all the things your mother missed out on because of her disease. “My dad filmed my high school and college graduations for her, and NCAA tournaments too. She watches some NWSL and USA games online or on TV if they’re streaming.” Again, you pause, knowing that your childhood looked so different from hers. “Growing up for me was different than it was for most kids. I always had to be the one looking out for her instead of her looking out for me. I’ve always known she loves me, though, even though she has never actually said it. I don’t know, maybe that’s a coping mechanism, but I at least think she does.”_

_Ali wraps both of her arms around your waist and pulls herself even closer, now almost halfway on top of you. “I think you’re incredible,” she purrs, snuggling against your chest. “And she does love you, Ashlyn. She’s so, so proud of you. I saw it in her eyes when she was talking about you tonight.”_

_“She doesn’t remember who I am half the time.”_

_“She does. She may not remember your name, but she knows who you are. And she told me herself — you put her sun in the sky. Everything she is and every good thing she has ever done is for you.”_

_Weeks later, the promise of a new season brings hope to your life. You watch the NWSL College Draft online with Ali right by your side, and you’re both rather impressed with the players the Washington Spirit acquired. The days are soon filled with training sessions — extra weights, more hours of film, balancing national team commitments and your club — and what little free time you have, Ali takes over. You spend rainy days inside on the couch, watching whatever soccer game you can find, and if nothing else, you two have started catching up on Scandal on Netflix. Sometimes you go to the field together and train, silent other than a few pointers here and there, and others you spend exploring the city or — much to your dismay — shopping. The Algarve Cup comes around at the beginning of March, and it’s a disappointing result for all of you. You don’t even make it to the final, and you finish 7th place — the lowest finish ever at the Algarve. Nobody says it aloud, but it looks like change is coming for the national team._

_And then it’s time to play for your club again, and Crystal Dunn tells you that happiness looks good on you._

_It’s a new world, this secret life with Ali, but Crystal is right — happiness suits you._


	24. the inevitable.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Light hearted goodness. I have read far too many works in which there is a giant Ali-Ashlyn breakup due to the idea of cheating/insecurity/not-ready-to-be-out. (Not bashing…I wrote one of those.) That being said, there will be no huge fight or fallout in this piece. There will be conflict, but it won’t stem from jealousy or anything of the sort. Guess away, people. For now, here’s a little playful chapter filled with national team goodness.

_Tampa, Florida. June 2014._

Ali’s mother has always told her that if you play with fire, you’re going to get burned.

It just so happens that, come June at their first camp under the U.S. Women’s National Team’s new head coach, the fire Ali has been playing with for quite some time ends up giving her ego a third-degree burn.

It was Ashlyn’s idea. At least that’s what Ali yelps when the situation blows up in her face and she’s sent scrambling for her dignity and clothing. She’s red in the face and still trying to figure out how this has happened when she was so sure she was being careful. Part of the problem could be that Ali has always believed she’s sneakier than she really is, boasting to the team about how her mom never knew when she snuck out in high school (nobody bothers pointing out that Debbie definitely knew because there would be no other reason for the door to be unlocked and the front porch light to be on) and that she was always in charge of escapades with her college team at Penn State (once again, nobody bothers to remind her that she complains regularly about the extra fitness their coach made them do every Friday morning practice.) So really, blame can partly fall on her teammates for this one.

_Of course it’s Hope,_ Ali thinks to herself. It has to be freaking Hope, with her icy confidence and watchful eyes and judgmental gazes. And when it comes down to it, Ali really blames herself and no one else, not even Ashlyn. She’s noticed Hope all week, studying her like she’s going to be quizzed over Ali Krieger later — no, like Ali Krieger is the most dangerous striker in the world and Hope is going to find a way to shut her down. Hope hasn’t been subtle in her study either — it’s not Solo’s style. No. Thinking back, it’s all been clear. The gazes left too long in the breakfast line, the piercing eyes Ali can still feel burning into the back of her head even when Hope looks away, the lips pressed into a thin line — almost a smirk — any time Ashlyn is at her side. _Of fucking course it’s Hope._

And really, Ali is just glad it’s not worse when it does happen. She’s relieved, even, that Hope is brash and confident, that she’s wrong so little that there is no way she could be wrong about this. And she’s more than happy that Hope hates causing big scenes around the team and chooses a very Hope method of approaching her about the “little situation.”

“I’m not trying to tell you how to live or whatever, but I’m going to give you fair warning that you and Ashlyn are two of the least subtle people in the entire world.”

That’s all she says, and it’s over lunch on their third day of camp. Ali chokes on the turkey and lettuce sandwich she’s eating; Hope slides her water bottle closer to her and continues on chewing mildly as if nothing has happened.

“What do you mean?” Ali answers a few seconds later when she is able to talk, but she’s already blushing and averting her eyes.

Hope laughs, which probably calls more attention to them than anything else would have, and leans back in her chair. “I’m saying that you might want to turn it down a bit. At least around these people. And don’t try to lie — she’s like a loyal puppy dog. Where you are, she is. Also, I saw that hickey on her collarbone from a mile away in the locker room yesterday.” She pauses, waiting for Ali to regain composure. “Look, I’m all about live and let live or whatever. But nobody on this team is stupid, and they’re all going to figure it out sooner than later. And you’re pushing your luck since we have a new coach and all, but Jill Ellis has been around the coaching block a few times and she’s not blind. She’s been around this team enough to know us all fairly well. Lovesick, I get it. But try not to advertise it with flashing lights and sirens.” Hope gets up to throw away her tray and looks back over her shoulder on second thought. “And leave it off the field, Krieger. I mean it.”

When Ali recaps the events of the day to Ashlyn in their shared hotel room a few hours later, as they get ready for bed, Ashlyn shrugs, seemingly unsurprised. “Could have been a lot worse. And it’s just Hope. She has her own off-the-field issues to deal with. Ours should be the least of her concerns,” she says frankly as she pulls a tee shirt over her head and smiles sweetly at Ali. “And she’ll never tell anyone. Don’t worry about it. It’s just you and me, baby.”

She does her best to trust Ashlyn and not worry. After all, Ash is right. Hope is…well, Hope is Hope and she’s been pretty closed off lately, dealing with her own complicated (messy) personal life. If anyone’s going to find out about their relationship, it’s best that it’s her. She’s going through enough crap of her own that she doesn’t really give a rat’s ass about what they’re doing unless it interferes with their game.

But then it’s not just Hope, it’s Becky asking questions — about the hickey on the small of Ali’s back that she plays off as a bruise from practice, about where she was during movie night when the rest of the team was watching Frozen in Kelley and Sydney’s room, about the dark circles beneath her eyes that suggest a deeper physical exhaustion than normal. And then it’s Pinoe being more than curious or inquisitive, being downright _nosy_ and hounding her about her “schoolgirl crush” on Ashlyn from years back and about why only one bed is made down in Ali and Ashlyn’s room and about why Ali continues to ditch “gals night” featuring Pinoe  & Ali & Crystal Dunn & HAO in sober karaoke at the bar down the street for “sleep.” And finally, it’s Carli, who has never been good with her filter and flat out tells Ali that whatever she and Ashlyn have is weird unless they’re more than friends.

Ali really thought it couldn’t get much worse than Hope Solo outing her during their lunch break, but she’s wrong. She’s really, _really_ wrong, as is proven to her on the day before their friendly in Tampa.

It started out as a movie. That’s how it always does at camp, though — Ali texts Ashlyn after training or between sessions if they have a double day, saying she’s tired and wants to watch a movie. One would think Ashlyn knows better by now, but she continues to pick out a Netflix movie — one Ali hasn’t seen, like Top Gun or Sleepless in Seattle — and sneaks some junk food in through her backpack. And they never make it more than fifteen minutes into the movie before Ali is straddling her and they’ve both lost a significant amount of clothing. It just so happens that this time, when movie time turns into sexy time, Jill Ellis knocks on their door to let them know that they’re late for the team building exercises that were scheduled for four in the afternoon. And ironically (or maybe unironically) the two neglected the door in the heat of the moment, letting it fall shut gently and missing it catch but not close on the bolt. All Jill has to do is knock firmly one time, and the door is floating open to the sounds of soft moans and breathy whimpers.

She doesn’t turn the corner from the small entryway into the room to interrupt. Instead, she clears her throat loudly and says directly from around the wall, “You two. Conference room. Six minutes. I expect you to appear presentable and have a good explanation and solution for this matter.”

The next six minutes are the slowest of Ali’s life. She’s off Ashlyn in about three seconds flat, leaving the goalkeeper dumbfounded and unfulfilled atop the bed closest to the door, and throwing on clothes. She isn’t even certain if she’s putting on her clothes — she’s got Ashlyn’s baggy white v-neck on inside out, her own denim shorts, and blue flip flops on the wrong feet. Her cheeks are flushed bright, and a deep scarlet blush is creeping up her neck. Ashlyn takes her time finding her own clothes, though she chooses one of her own shirts over the strappy tank top Ali had been wearing, and listens in adoration as Ali panics over how they’re going to fix this issue with Jill. After all, she’s “only been head coach for about five minutes” and — though she’s no new face for U.S. Soccer — they don’t know her style of confrontation or how she deals with adversity on the team.

They make it to the conference room in just under six minutes to find Jill and Dawn sitting at the front of the empty room, relaxing in folding chairs and laughing about something on Jill’s iPhone. It makes Ali feel relieved and Ashlyn tense up. In fact, Ali all but hauls a forlorn and miserable Ashlyn to two chairs in front of their coach and fitness coach before plopping her down and saying in a very straightforward voice, “So I guess it’s pretty clear that we are together and that means a few things. One, it means that I’m going to make sure that no ball gets past her on my account. Two, it means that you will never put us in the same room again. And three, it means that we promise you both that nothing off the field will ever interfere with the team, unless it’s me sitting out for a season because I’m carrying her children.”

Jill’s eyebrows shoot up, Dawn nearly spits her tea across the room, and Ashlyn can feel her jaw drop.

Fortunately, Jill recovers quickly. “Yes, well, I also expect the two of you to find a better way to spend your free time. And I mean it, ladies — leave your relationship off the field. If it comes anywhere near my locker room or my team, I’ll have no other choice but to make sure that you don’t see the light of day until the problem is solved. As far as I’m concerned, there are no problems with you two dating. All I ask is that your relationship stays professional on the pitch and at camps and tournaments.”

Ashlyn nods emphatically, wishing she could be almost anywhere else. Chastisements and lectures like this one always remind her of when her grandmother came home and found out that she’d bought tampons at the small pharmacy in Satellite Beach when she was 13. That had led to an hour of instruction and making sure that her granddaughter knew about the changes in her body and what all could happen now that she had “become a woman.” She can still remember her ears burning and her face downcast, hoping that Jesus would return and save her from any further humiliation. Paired with her coach finding out about her relationship with Ali by walking in on them having sex, the tampon lecture pales in comparison.

The rest of the team inevitably finds out as the week progresses. Maybe it’s because Hope’s eyes are still burning into Ali every time they meet, or because Becky is naturally inquisitive, or because Pinoe can’t help but tease, or because Carli can’t ever keep her comments to herself, but Ash knows that it’s because Hope is right and she is a puppy dog. She is at Ali’s beck and call, always at her side, always there for her.

So really, their teammates knowing what’s really going on between them is just the inevitable.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I am so sorry for my delay. As it turns out, there's no such thing as "when life slows down" because in addition to having primary custody of my two-year-old niece, my boyfriend having a week off from his surgical residency and being in town, and just getting back from vacation, I had West Nile virus! Yay mosquitoes!


	25. it's been a hard year.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ashlyn looks back on 2014 and looks forward to the new year -- their year.

_Santa Barbara, California. New Year’s Eve 2014._

The sun shines bright on the last day of another year.

Overhead, a few wispy clouds float in the clear blue sky. The morning is calm and still beside the water. With a steaming mug of black coffee in her hands, Ashlyn sits on the sandy shore of More Mesa Beach in Santa Barbara, California, as she reflects on the past 365 days.

It’s been a hard year.

Nobody she knows would deny that much. The year that had seemed at first to hold so much promise had not gone as planned, and she can’t ever remember being so _relieved_ for a year to end before. What a discouraging few months it’s been. Looking back, it seems a bit silly — nothing had gone terribly wrong, but nothing had been terribly right. It’s the little things, she supposes, that all add up to the sense of sheer gladness she feels for the end of this year. She’ll never deny being a sucker for the romance of a new year — the idea of a new chapter, a new beginning, a whole new sheet, a chance for greatness that is only separated from the past however many minutes of the past year by a second on a clock — but this feels different. She has never bought into New Year’s resolutions, the whole “new year, new me!” thing, but suddenly she finds herself needing something to hold on to as one year draws to a close. The promise of a new year, a fresh page, only a matter of hours away brings light back into her eyes and breath back into her lungs.

There’s nothing she wants more in the new year than this fresh start it offers.

After the events of the past year, her entire being feels defeated. She never thought doing what she loved most would drain her so much, but all it took to remind her that she is entirely human, entirely breakable, was a few weeks off for the holidays. Between playing for club and country, the injuries that seemed to have plagued the team, the off-field issues that seemed to hunt Hope Solo down and _eat at her_ until she physically could not fight them off any longer, and the slow deterioration of her mom’s illness, she’s feeling like there is nothing left to give. She feels used up and burned out. She feels as though she has faded away. So, for someone who has never cozied up to thinking that a person’s life can change from 11:59 pm on December 31st to 12:00 midnight on January 1, she is aching…praying…begging for the new beginning.

Ali has always loved New Year’s Eve.

Her parents had once thrown extravagant New Year’s Eve company parties — black tie affairs with expensive champagne and mood lighting and hors d’oeuvres. Every December 31st until Debbie and Ken had divorced, Ali would sit at the vanity in her pajamas and watch as Deb prepared for the evening. A long, slimming black dress. Dark hair pulled elegantly into a French twist. Rouge on cheekbones. Red lipstick. Diamonds around her neck. It all intrigued Ali from the time she was a tiny girl. As she grew up, she would struggle to stay awake until midnight for the ball drop in the city square so she could kiss Kyle on the cheek come midnight and toast in a flute of sparkling grape juice. She always thought it was the charm of the parties that drew her in, but the older she’s gotten, the more she realizes it’s the same reason that people love birthdays and new babies — it’s a sign of hope. It’s a reminder that, no matter how hard things are getting, there is always a new page ahead that you can make your own.

It’s with a pang that Ashlyn knows this has been a hard year for Ali too.

As much as she has tried to give her the world, to give her everything she could ever want or need, she’s starting to think that maybe Ali can’t ever give someone her whole heart ever again. She knows that, once someone is broken to a certain point, there’s no going back, no fixing it, no measure of anything that could ever repair the damage that’s been done. If she didn’t understand, if she hadn’t gone through the exact same thing once upon a time, too long ago to even bother thinking about any more, she might have been more angry or upset. But she had. Ashlyn had experienced the heartache, the feeling of self-loathing, the emptiness inside, the hole so deep a person could get buried if they stayed too long. She knows what it’s like to put your heart in someone else’s hands, no matter the way, and have that one small piece kept from you forever because you leave the tiniest parts of yourself with those you love most. And because she’s done it all, she knows that there’s no one person who can fill that space left behind, who can mend that hurt, who can make you whole again.

She knows that it’s more than just three words, I and love and you, and it’s more than the physicality of love. She knows that it’s more than one person trying to carry the weight of the world for you, bending and straining until they break. She knows that it takes a village. It takes road trips filled with Reese’s peanut butter cups and old music. It takes airports and sunrises and beaches. It takes laughing and crying and laughing until you cry. It takes early mornings, late nights, and even all-nighters. It takes vulnerability, trust, passion, and hope. It takes old and new. It takes quiet and noise. It takes a little more of your heart, because believing in second chances takes a bit of insanity and lot of courage. And most of all, it takes people. It takes people who are a living, breathing sign that things do get better, that life does go on, that love is real and that you do deserve to _be loved_ — fully, recklessly, with abandon, unconditionally.

It takes a person who has been broken to put someone who is broken back together, and Ash knows that better than anybody. It takes a person who has experienced the defeat, the anger, the confusion, the heaviness, the complete _sadness_ to heal a heart so damaged. It takes someone who you can call at three in the morning when your lungs burn and your head is spinning and you don’t think you can _breathe_ much less wake up and face another day like the one before it. It takes someone who will not invalidate what you are feeling or make lesser your struggles. It takes someone who knows how much patience and time and forgiveness and restarts it will take to be “okay” again.

So Ashlyn can be that for Ali. She can see the emptiness in her eyes in the morning as she looks in the mirror, the lines next to her eyes more pronounced than ever before, and she doesn’t have to worry if Ali loves her or not. She can watch her toy with the ring that still hangs on a long chain around her neck, hidden by her clothes most of the time, and not be angry or impatient with her for still holding on to the memories of someone she had given her whole heart to and who still holds a huge part of it though he is gone.

She doesn’t know what it is about this year, but Ali has felt it more deeply than ever. They talk about it from time to time, Jesse and Bren mostly. They talk about what Jesse would think about Ashlyn — he’d love her for sure, Ali says, because she has a heart of gold and he did too; Ash argues that he’d hate her or she’d hate him because they both love Ali more than anyone or anything else in the world — and how different things would be if he were here, even though the very thought of Ali not being with her makes Ash’s stomach tie up in knots because she has no doubt that she would not be a factor in Ali’s life if Jesse were still alive. They talk about Bren too, about how he’s nearly five years old now, living in Canada with his adoptive family. Ashlyn asks in a quiet voice if Ali is ever going to find him, and she replies softly that she already has. He’s in Vancouver with his dad who still fights fires and built him a tree house, a mother who buys him books and a bicycle and bakes cookies for his class at school, two older sisters who taught him to banana kick a soccer ball and shoot a jump shot on the miniature basketball goal, and a new baby sister he kisses all the time. He’s with his family, and as long as he has that, Ali is happy.

The letters from Maudie have slowly died off, and though Ali pretends to be okay with that, Ashlyn can’t miss the sadness that has crept back into her eyes since they stopped coming. In the beginning, when Rikki and Maudie first moved off, the letters came frequently. Once or twice a week, even, Ali would look forward to checking the mail and opening a colorful drawing from the toddler. Then it became less often, maybe three times a month, and then once a month, and then she’d wait months between letters, and now it’s been almost half a year without hearing from Maudie, and Ali has tried to act like it doesn’t bother her, but Ashlyn knows better. She can’t mistake the slump of her shoulders and the slowness of her walk for simple exhaustion. Because she has done it herself, she knows that it’s the emptiness that comes when love leaves you a few too many times.

She hopes that the next year is good to her — to them all. She hopes that 2015 is more than any of them could have ever dreamed — more beautiful, more forgiving, more exciting, more rewarding, more love-filled than any before it. She hopes that it’s proof that there are far better things ahead than there were behind, that they all experience love and friendship and healing and victory.

Until then, she’s going to keep loving Ali. She is going to keep being her person, keep giving her all she can and then some, keep being her rock. She owes her that much.


	26. wedding bells.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which there might be some angst.

_Santa Barbara, California. New Year’s Eve 2014._

She doesn’t cry until she sees Alex walking down the aisle.

And maybe she can play them off as happy tears, because it’s absolutely beautiful. She can think of nothing more fitting for her dear friend than a New Year’s Eve wedding on the beach with the sun setting on the horizon, a Southern California breeze blowing through the attendees and making it just cool enough that Ashlyn drapes her jacket over her shoulders sweetly halfway through the ceremony, and almost two hundred of the people she loves most in this world. She can play them off as happy tears because she cries at every wedding — at HAO’s and A-Rod’s and Cheney’s and Buehler’s and even Hope’s, though to be fair everyone cried at Hope’s because it was such a travesty for her to marry a man they didn’t think loved her. She can play them off as happy tears because there are other people crying too — Sarah, Abby’s wife, a few seats down, and Sydney on Sarah’s left.

But Tobin, who stands directly to the right of her, has one arm steadily placed on the small of her back and the other looped comfortingly over Kelley’s shoulders as she too shakes with sobs, ones she can’t even pretend are out of happiness. It always has been Tobin, all limbs, all heart, all brains, who perceives and understands far more than she has been told, who holds them together when they feel like falling apart.

Alex is a vision in her wedding dress. Ivory lace that hugs her body in just the right places and seems to gleam during golden hour. As she stands beneath the arch, hand-in-hand with Servando, one can’t help but stare. It’s near impossible to tear your eyes away from what’s before you long enough to pay attention, the love those two have shared for years now finally coming to be on a perfect New Year’s Eve of a hard year, and the way he looks at her like she’s the only person in the whole world, the one who hung the stars, the one who makes his heart beat and breath fill his lungs.

She doesn't cry again until they are pronounced Mr. and Mrs. Carrasco and are all but dancing back down the aisle as husband and wife.

And while those around her cheer and pump their fists and cat-call, she tries not to think too hard about how this day should have been hers. She should have had the perfect wedding day years ago, the ivory dress for a winter wedding, the white roses in her hands and the band on her finger. She should have gone down the aisle on her father’s arm and called him Daddy one last time as he teared up and kissed her on the cheek before he nodded once at Jesse and reminded him to take good care of her, his little girl. She should have had the bachelorette party with her teammates, drinking and dancing and having a slumber party in the hotel room and sharing secrets all night. She should have had the day of preparation, of makeup artists and hair stylists and manicures and the best women in her life in and out of the room all day reminding her to drink water and that she looks stunning and that this is really happening.

Because there was a man she loved — still loves — every bit as much as Alex loves Servando. There was a man who loved her so much he would have given it all up for her. There was a man who was brave — courageous — gentle — kind — compassionate — humble…who loved her more than the infinitely numbered stars in the sky…who was her sun and her moon and her soul. Whose quiet and calm perfectly matched her loud and unsure. Whose very smile could have stopped her beating heart each time she saw it, whose words were her strength, who was a good sailor in the storm. There was a man who still holds so much of her heart it hurts — who might always keep that piece. There was a man she wanted to spend the rest of her life with, having babies and playing soccer and finally settling down to watch him chase his dreams the same way he had so willingly watched as she pursued hers. There was a man she would have walked down the aisle to, would have promised to spend every moment of every day loving until her heart stopped beating. There was a man she now fears may have robbed her of the ability to love someone so fully ever again, and she wanted — _prayed for_ — this day with him.

It’s not that she isn’t happy for Alex, because she is — she’s more than happy, she’s grateful. She’s grateful that Alex gets this day, this love, this life with the person she loves more than anyone else in the world. She’s grateful for the friendship she shares with Alex, for the memories they have created and the bond that is unbreakable. And she is so, so happy for her — for anyone who gets to experience this kind of love, the kind of love that is so real and so rare that you can do nothing else but choose to spend the rest of your life with this person who is so temporary and so unpredictable and so human, and you still choose to love them every day…to love them even though you know they can’t stay forever…to love them even though you know _you_ can’t stay forever.

She is trying to figure out how she can be both happy and sad at the same time.

Tobin’s arm is around her waist again, steadying her as she lets the tears fall silently down her face, and the other remains slung over Kelley’s shoulders because Kelley knows better than anyone that sometimes people are only meant to love you for a season.

The crowd around them begins to clear out as guests head toward the reception venue. Still the three women remain at their seats near the front. Tobin stands like a brick wall — their brick wall — with one arm around Ali and one around Kelley. She is silent but strong, a good captain in times of battle. Ali thinks again about how lucky they are to have her, this woman who can be so young and childish yet so wise and perceptive, the glue to their team.

Leaning against their rental car with her suit jacket draped over one arm and her sunglasses on, Ashlyn observes from a distance. She has come to know her place in situations like this one, not wanting to overstep her boundaries, so she waits patiently beside the car. After all, she loves Ali more than anything else. She’ll give her all the space she needs.

\- - - - - - - - - - - - - 

The party goes on well into the night.

Ali takes the dance floor with Ashlyn…with Kelley…with Alex…with almost anybody who offers, her sadness and ache from earlier seemingly gone. There’s plenty of alcohol to go around, plenty of good food, plenty of excellent music. There’s a balloon drop at midnight, and Ali even finds Ashlyn for a quick kiss hidden from the cameras in the crowd of their teammates.

It’s the last dance of the night, Ali’s slow dancing with Sydney’s boyfriend Dom and Ashlyn is searching for her coat when Kelley slams up beside her. She’s drunk, Ash can tell from the darkness and empty glaze over her eyes, and she seems angry.

“Ever hate someone so much you want to watch them choke on a bite of enchilada and die?” she all but spits angrily, motioning the bartender over.

Ashlyn stares amusedly as Kelley orders them each a shot of tequila. “I’ll just take a water, please,” she tells him when he arrives with their sloshy glasses of warm amber liquid. She sends a quick look toward the dance floor, where Ali is at least a little drunk — not annoyingly so, but still drunk — and Tobin is having so much fun (so much to drink) she can barely stand up straight.

Kelley glares half-heartedly.

“I’m the designated driver,” she reminds her. “And if I’m drunk, you’re all stuck here tonight instead of fending off a hangover from the comfort of a fluffy hotel bed.”

“Not a big deal,” Kelley shrugs, sliding both shots closer. “More for me!” And with that, she throws back both shots with no lime chaser and grimaces as they hit her belly before slamming down the glasses so forcefully Ashlyn worries they might shatter in her hands.

“What are you drinking to forget tonight?” she asks mildy as she sips the ice water the bartender brought over.

Kelley orders another beer and seethes through a clenched jaw, “Love. Fucking love.” She pauses as she realizes that Ashlyn is not going to keep pushing her and decides to willingly give up the information. “Ya know, fuck love, right? Fuck it. It’s stupid and temporary. I’m not going to bother with it because who needs it anyway?” She laughs, but it’s more of a scoff. “Fuck love. I don’t need it.”

“Everyone needs love, Kelley,” Ashlyn says gently, finishing her water. “Even you.” For a beat or two, she wonders what happened to make Kelley — sweet, childlike, funloving, big-hearted, innocent, easy-going _Kelley_ who loves chocolate milk and squirrels and jokes and Eggo waffles — so angry at life. She wonders who made Kelley so hateful, so sad, so very hurt.

“I don’t need it, Harris, so fuck off,” Kelley finally mumbles.

Ashlyn softens her tone. “Hey. Baby Squirrel. You okay?” For emphasis, she knocks her elbow into Kelley’s side.

“I’m fine,” she mutters, stirring her beer with her pinky. “But you might want to check in on your _girlfriend_.”

She shoots a quick look toward where Ali and Dom are two-stepping and laughing as Sydney drunkenly videos from where she’s collapsed into a chair near the dance floor. “Ali is fine, Kelley. I’m more worried about you.”

“Nobody _normal_ cries that much during a wedding, _Ashlyn_.” She jabs one finger in Ashlyn’s chest menacingly, and the tone in which Kelley articulates her name gives her an uneasy feeling. “Open your fucking eyes. Everyone in love is fucking _blind._ She may want to, but she can’t love you in the way you love her, and if you think otherwise you’re not as smart as I thought you were. God, it’s like you need a fucking manual to even operate from day to day. Jesus Christ.”

Ashlyn stands with her coat in arms and tosses a ten dollar bill onto the counter for the bartender. She leaves Kelley sitting at the bar ordering another round and takes Ali’s hand from Dom.

“You ready to turn in for the night, my love?”

The smile Ali gives her in return makes her heart flutter. “More than, stud.” She laces their fingers together and gives Alex a quick kiss on the cheek to send her off.

There is only a short glance tossed back toward Kelley, and Ashlyn turns to Abby. “You gonna get that one home?”

Abby nods understandingly. “Baby Squirrel will be returned to her hotel room in one drunken mess. No worries.”

“Then I think we’re going to slip out early,” she confesses, feeling Ali’s hand slide lower on her back. “Princess here is pretty tired.”

Ali’s hand grabs her butt hotly. “I am not. You’re tired.”

“Or you’re both turned on,” a very drunk Syd says as she makes a spot for herself between Abby and Sarah, slinging her arms over both of their shoulders. “Because everyone has sex after weddings.”

Thankfully, Abby either misses or chooses to ignore both Ali’s hand and Syd’s comment and instead nods. “I’ll tell Tobin that we’re going to head out pretty soon too. Alex and Serv are about to leave anyway.” She pauses, taking a look around outside at the clear night sky and millions of stars. “It was a beautiful wedding, wasn’t it?”

Ali nods dreamily, leaning heavier on Ashlyn’s shoulder as she subtly slips one hand beneath her coat to make contact with the skin on Ash’s lower back. “The loveliest.”

\- - - - - - - - - - - - - 

_It’s well after three in the morning when Ali presses her bare front into Ashlyn’s back and mumbles into her shoulder in a sleepy voice, “I love weddings.”_


	27. spring cleaning (little letters)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, okay. Maybe another chapter or two of angst after this one before we are all happy shiny again and on our way to the World Cup. Things are going to get better, I swear. Meanwhile...thank you all for your comments AND your good thoughts in fighting West Nile. It pays to have a boyfriend who is a doctor :)

_Washington, D.C. March 2015._

Three months in and Ashlyn is already starting to think that maybe 2015 is not actually “their year” at all.

It’s not that the past three months have been inherently bad, they’ve just been…well, they haven’t been the shooting stars and rainbows and Florida sunsets that she had hoped for, and rather than night skies and beauty after the rain and dusk on the water, she’s gotten clouds and storms and a city where she can’t see the stars.

Whitney told her she was giving up on the idea of “their year” too soon and that “there is still so much greatness to look forward to! Don’t crap out on 2015 just yet!”

And then she had remembered that Whitney is a “happy shiny” person who will forever be an optimist to the max. So she found the least happy shiny optimistic person she knows, Hope Solo.

Hope had told her exactly what she wanted to hear — “I know, 2015 has really kind of sucked ass so far, hasn’t it? I mean, like three minutes in I woke up and realized I’d missed the toast and the midnight kiss and the ball drop so it was pretty much fate to suck. I decided then and there that 2015 probably isn’t my year.” — before she had promptly been suspended from U.S. Soccer for 30 days following a drunk driving incident with Jerramy at camp in January. So for thirty days, Ashlyn was pessimistically clawing her way through 2015 without Hope, though she had managed to possibly wrangle Alex into thinking the same way when they both put in extra hours during camp and complained about it together — the work they were doing on their own accord.

Keeping goal while Hope was suspended was nice for Ashlyn, but the Algarve came around and their savior was back. Their number one was back between the posts where she should have been all along, and she was practically a new person. In fact, Ashlyn nearly choked on her Quest bar when Kelley mentioned counseling and a spiritual healer that Hope was seeing in Washington. Nope. Suddenly Hope was all love and light, no more shutting people out or negative comments or blame shifting or even her usual tart words during team meetings. She was _happy_ and she was letting go of past anger and she was doing _really well._ Part of her is glad for Hope, that her friend is finally becoming publicly what Ash knows her to be in private. And the other part is bitter beyond words about a few things — one, that Hope is back and immediately reclaims her starting position; two, that Hope is no longer someone she can bitch about things with; and three, that Hope has literally _zero interest_ in anything that will draw unwanted attention to her.

And Ali. Don’t even get her _started_ on how things are going with Ali. It’s not that things have been bad with Ali. They haven’t been necessarily fighting. She just feels like she has to walk on eggshells around her girlfriend. There have been countless “don’t you dare post that on social media” warnings, several “why did you buy regular almond milk instead of vanilla” breakdowns, and a few “I’m sorry, I’m just really emotional” whimpers in the past three months. Ashlyn is about at her wit’s end. She doesn’t know what else she can do. She doesn’t know what it even means but apparently she has been wearing “love blinders” and has missed every single one of her girlfriend’s faults. At least, that’s what a (still bitter) Kelley continues to tell Ashlyn every time she gets the chance.

Speaking of Kelley, her anger is still unbridled at least on the field. Nobody can quite pinpoint what exactly it is causing her to be so hateful all the time, not even Tobin, and it seems to have gotten worse over the past few months. Some of the veterans, Carli and Abby and Christie even, have chalked it up to Kelley not getting the playing time they all believe she deserves. Alex and Ashlyn argue that this doesn’t explain her angry rant at the wedding and “fuck love because who needs it anyway.” And if you’re Christen, you keep your opinions to yourself but quietly tell Ali that you think it’s that Kelley has a crush on Hope that is more than a crush now, it’s love, and Hope can’t love her back even if she once had not long before she had married Jerramy, and Kelley is afraid that she will never love anyone the way she had loved Hope.

March brings new promise to the year — promise of better things to come. With the beginning of spring comes the return of the sunshine, the blooming of the roses Ali planted in the front yard, the warmth of the afternoons. Still, everyone around Ashlyn’s house is on edge. The NWSL season will start in a matter of days. Jill will release her 23-person World Cup roster tomorrow. And excuse Ashlyn if she is taking this too lightly, but she thinks that everyone is overreacting a little bit — Ali especially, who has all but a guaranteed spot as one of the twenty-three going to Canada come June considering she’s widely regarded as the best right back in the world. So while Crystal naps and Ali is out for a media day as the captain of the Washington Spirit, Ashlyn is cleaning.

She’s vacuumed and mopped all the floors, shampooed the carpet in the guest room to remove the stain where Boss, Syd’s chihuahua, had thrown up wildflowers last summer, dusted the entire house, cleaned all the windows, mowed the grass, swept the front porch, and washed all the sheets in the house before hanging them on a makeshift clothesline to dry in the backyard. It’s the sheet washing that gets her in trouble. And it’s the cleaning that gets her into trouble. She’s humming some dumb teenage love song under her breath and flipping the mattress in hers and Ali’s room when the moleskine slips out from between the box spring and the bedframe. The first part of her tells her to ignore it and put it back where it belongs, but the most curious and wicked part tells her to look at it, read it, see what’s inside.

Ashlyn always has had a rather poor habit of getting into things she shouldn’t have. Her dad loves to tell the story of the time she was four years old and got into the rat poison he had laid out in his work shed; about how her mother had cried for three hours and called poison control at least a dozen times. Chris, her brother, will always leap at an opportunity to tell the tale of the time she fell into the orchestra pit at the church where their grandma played piano because she was playing hide-and-seek in the sanctuary. And Grandma Harris herself has a favorite, the one where she caught Ashlyn on top of the fridge with her hand in the cookie jar and had blatantly lied to her about what she was doing when she had a cookie in her hand and chocolate over her face.

She supposes it isn’t all that different now that she’s 29. She still has a propensity for the unknown, still has a need to explore things further when she knows she shouldn’t. And it’s that side of her, the unwanted curiosity, the overwhelming sense of mystery, that wins this one. Her fingers are like magnets as she takes the thick, worn journal from the floor and flips through its crinkled pages, some coffee stained and wrinkled from tears, others only holding a word or two. She reads about Ali’s life, about college at Penn State, about the night she lost her virginity at a college party, about the first time she kissed a girl, about Kyle’s addiction, about broken legs and broken dreams. She reads about Germany, about a girl named Sara, about Nadine and Svenja and Sandra. She reads about home, ACL tears, loss that she didn’t think she could bounce back from but did. She reads about herself even, about the day they met, about the unlikely friendship, about Sweden and Duisburg and surgery and the future. She reads “you are my Landslide” and “I’m sorry.”

It’s the last pages that catch her eyes the most, the ones that aren’t crumpled and the lines that aren’t smeared with salty tears or coffee from early mornings or late nights. It’s the pages that all begin with “Dear Ashlyn…” that leave her heart in knots and her eyes bleary.

\- - - - - - - - - - - - - 

_somewhere over the ocean. february 14, 2015._

_There is something to be said about the beauty of a new day._

_Bathed in the golden light of morning over the water, I watch you sleep._

_Miles above it all, miles above everything that has made me feel so heavy, I am once again reminded that each sunrise brings with it a new dawn, and no matter how hard it has been — if the wind has been howling or the sun has refused to shine or the clouds have not given way to rain — every day that we wake up, we wake renewed._

_So goes the tide, I suppose._

_Bathed in the golden light of morning over the water, I watch you sleep._

_My heart is so, so full with love for you. I am so proud of you, so proud of all that you are and what you stand for. I am so thankful that I have the privilege of being yours. You were the last person I expected to fall in love with, after all; my best friend, my confidante, my constant. My mom would say that’s how love goes, though — it’s never expected, never planned. You can’t choose who you fall in love with. You have become my everything. You are my sunrise, my new chance, my turning page. You are my heartbeat, my air, my light. I can’t breathe without you. You are my victories, my defeats, my quiet and my wild. You are my grace, humility, honesty, loyalty, courage, bravery. I love you. I am in love with you._

_I only wish I could say that it is only you my heart beats for, only you I ache for._

_Because while you are my love, my new day, the air in my lungs, he was my soul. He was my rock, my anchor, my gravity. In some ways, maybe he still is my rock and my anchor and my gravity and all things heavy, all things keeping me down and away from you. And something they never tell you is that sometimes, when you lose someone, you lose yourself too._

_It’s true that I need you, that I want you every minute of every day for the rest of my life, but I am so terrified of that kind of love. The thought of giving my heart to you in the way I gave it to him makes me tremble. I read once that there is such thing as giving too much of yourself away, and I know that is what I did with him. He was my happiness. He was my heartbeat. He was everything good I had ever known — he was the sun, he was a gold medal, he was the ocean, he was the smell of early spring and a white Christmas and Thanksgiving naps. When he was taken from me, I was lost as well, and as much as I’ve tried, I can’t find that piece again. It’s been years, dammit, and I still feel as though I’m loving you halfway because I don’t know how to find that part of me that he still holds._

_Love is not something you can meet someone in the middle on, and the last thing that I want in this world is for you to spend your life trying to make me whole again._

_I watch you sleep and wonder about you. I know that one day you could see me for what I really am, broken and scared and weak and the opposite of the brave and strong woman you think me to be. Until then, I will be doing my best to find that piece of me that I thought was gone forever so you can have every part of my heart. I will work to make my heart beat for you and only you._

_From, Your Ali._


	28. do you love me?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> (one of) the last angsty chapters :):):):)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I really debated whether or not I was going to continue this even though I know where it is going because of everything going on with the “fandom” right now, but I can’t just leave you guys hanging. On the other hand…don’t comment “Krashlyn” or “gay” or ANYTHING OF THE SORT on Ali and Ashlyn’s social media. Don’t comment at all unless it’s on their soccer or their outfit or something like that :) It’s weird and creepy and rude and none of our business. We are better than that, friends. We are not those fans!!!!!!

_Washington, D.C. March 2015._

It hurts.

As much as she wants to say that it doesn’t — that it hasn’t phased her, that she knew it was the truth before the words were in front of her, that there is no doubt in her mind that Ali does love her as much as she can — it hurts.

She has spent the past hour going between pacing the living room and crawling on the cool bathroom tile with nausea overtaking her whole body as she waits for Ali to return home. It’s not as though she isn’t trying to fight off the looming guilt and doubt, because she doesn’t want to be that person who is so dependent on the affection of another that she can’t physically function without their love or presence. And last time she checked, _she wasn’t._ There is something about Ali Krieger that has knocked her off her game since the moment they met, though, and she has changed everything. All that Ashlyn knew to be true about herself before Ali is different now — Ali has made her speechless, made her patient, made her submissive, made her into almost everything she never has been before.

That explains why Ashlyn has come to feel sick at the idea of not being able to love Ali forever — not being allowed to love her. It explains why she has to stumble into the bathroom each time she thinks about the letter, why doubt creeps in when she sees the framed picture of the two of them, seemingly happy and though they hadn’t yet admitted it, in love, in Germany a few years ago — the exact photo that Ali always smiles about and makes a comment about how they were “babies” back then — and why the minute hand on the clock seems to be moving in slow-motion while she waits for Ali. And that is what she’s been doing for a while, when she thinks about it — waiting for Ali. (She would really, really prefer to not be waiting on Ali to be ready to love her, really love her, for the rest of her life.)

She stares at the photo of Jesse she found in Ali’s moleskine and hates him. She doesn’t know him. She didn’t even know he existed until Becky and HAO told her. (He was a great guy, she knows, but she is angry with him for leaving Ali the way he did.)

_I think you robbed her of the ability to love anyone ever again, Jesse. Nice going._

\- - - - - - - - - - - - - 

“We need to talk.”

Ali drops her black gym bag on the floor and turns to the hook beside the door to hang up her Nike hoodie, looking confused and a bit annoyed. “Right now?”

There is a pause before Ashlyn nods urgently.

Slipping off her tennis shoes and pulling her hair to one side, Ali sighs heavily and locks the deadbolt behind her. Her eyes flicker to the clock on the oven. _10:14 pm._ She’s been awake since 4:30 to make her 6 am calltime on the local news, and she wants nothing more than a glass of wine, a hot bath, and bed immediately following. “Ashlyn…I’m exhausted. I’ve been up for hours and my feet are pounding and…and I’d really just like to go to bed. Can it please wait?”

“No.”

Again, a heaving sigh from Ali. “I’m not in the mood to fight. Whatever’s on your mind, go ahead and spill.”

She almost recants her earlier harshness and urgency. Ali, who normally fights people to the death on any matter from soccer to social issues to something as minuscule as Monopoly, sounds defeated before she’s even begun. Instead, Ashlyn blurts gracelessly, “Do you love me?”

Shock and slight anger muddle with the exhaustion across her face. From the couch, Crystal sits bolt upright and makes some lame excuse about turning in for the night before making a mad dash up the stairs without realizing that neither of her teammates are paying attention. Now Ali’s cheeks are bright red with anger and dismay as she takes one defiant step toward Ash, her chin held high and her jaw set.

“I don’t know where the hell that came from, but you need to _watch it_.” She shoves one finger into Ashlyn’s chest turbulently, and the flash in her eyes relays just how hurt and appalled she is beyond even her indignation.

Ashlyn feels the tears spring to her own eyes. _Don’t do it, Harris. Don’t cry in front of her. You’re stronger than that._ Throwing her arms up in surrender, she cries anyway. “You tell me, Ali! I was cleaning and found that letter you wrote me on Valentine’s Day talking about how you couldn’t love me!”

The anger in Ali’s eyes dissolves into pure betrayal. “You read my journal?” she mumbles softly, her voice small and childlike. Ash can do nothing but nod pathetically through the sudden onset of humiliation and self-hatred she’s feeling. “Fucking _hell_ , Ashlyn! That’s my journal! You had _no right._ None at all! God, what is fucking _wrong_ with you?!”

With each rising word, Ashlyn flinches and feels more like an insecure, clingy, stalking girlfriend. Ali rarely uses that word, and it’s normally reserved for her opponents on the pitch or the bed when her eyes are dark and she’s pinned beneath Ashlyn begging her for what she wants. “Ali, I…”

“ _Save it_ ,” Ali spits through clenched teeth. She’s no more than a few inches away from Ashlyn’s face now, and her cheeks are flushed hot with anger and hurt. “You were going through my things and you read something that is very personal. You read things that _nobody_ is supposed to read, and I mean nobody, and you think _you_ have the right to confront _me_ about what you read in my journal?! You had _no right._ I can’t even fucking _look_ at you right now! It’s making me sick to my stomach, Ashlyn! I _trusted_ you! You’re fucking _insane!_ You’re fucking _paranoid!_ ”

Ashlyn isn’t prepared for how that one word will rip through her like a knife. _Insane._ It’s hissed at her, like it’s a dirty word, like it’s the worst thing a person can be — insane; paranoid. After hearing it all those years ago, so many times, she thought it was done being hurled at her like an insult, meant to tear her down and feel worthless just like it did her mom. She didn’t think it would still threaten to bring her to her knees, still threaten to make her look like a fool. The very sound of it in the air nearly makes her lose her balance.

She spins on her heels, ready to sprint up the stairs and lock the door and cry until she feels better, until she can breathe right again, until it all makes sense again. It’s been a long day — a really fucking long day, and not the kind of long day that leaves you renewed and happy either — and she just wants to sleep. Her heart is still beating fast from all the yelling, or maybe it’s the fact that somebody whose hands she’d put her life in and whose hearts she wants to give hers to made her feel as though she was nothing, and she just wants to sleep.

“Wait.”

It’s Ashlyn’s weak plea that stops Ali as she’s making a slow ascent to her bedroom.

“Is it true?”

The look of pure sadness, confusion, and love on Ashlyn’s face melts away Ali’s angry exterior. She sounds six years old, like she was just reprimanded for pushing someone on the playground. When she sees that she has Ali’s attention, she doesn’t quite know what to do. She rocks back and forth on her heels for a moment or two before she speaks again.

“Is what you wrote true? Just answer that, and I swear I’ll leave you alone. Or I won’t. I’ll do whatever you want me to do, just answer me and I swear you won’t have to worry about me again no matter what.”

Ali’s heart flutters as she watches Ashlyn quickly swipe beneath her eyes to hide the tears that had fallen, like they were an accident or something, and then chew nervously on her lower lip as she shoved her hands into the pockets of her joggers. She can do nothing more than go back down the stairs and sweetly take her face in her hands.

“It’s true,” she finally whispers. “I’m trying so hard to let go of him, to let go of Jesse, to love only you. So yeah, it’s true. I didn’t think I’d ever be able to love again after I lost him. I didn’t expect to fall in love with you — didn’t _want_ to fall in love with you. But I did, Ashlyn, and it’s true. I love him. I always will, maybe, and that does _suck_. And I love you too, more than I thought to be possible, more than I even knew I could, more than I want to, Ash, and that has to say something. I thought there was nothing left to feel, and you made me feel it all when I’d been numb for so long. Love should last forever, Ashlyn, it just should. When you fall in love with someone, it’s not something that just goes away. There’s no such thing as falling out of love. You either love someone or you don’t, and if you do, you don’t stop.

“I don’t want him to own so much of my heart, and if I could, I would take it back. I would have never fallen in love with him in the first place because I still don’t know how I even fucking survived losing someone I loved so much. I mean, I couldn’t fucking _breathe_ and I couldn’t eat and I couldn’t sleep and it was all because of him. If I could, I would have never loved him the way I did. I would have been more cautious, not so young and dependent and lovesick. So please, at least try to understand — I do love him. I don’t want to, and still I do, and I’m trying to get back what he took from me but it’s _hard_ because he should be here, and we should be a family, and I haven’t stopped thinking about all the what-ifs since the day he died. But I do love you. I am in love with you. I do need you. And it’s still true, that I am trying. I am trying, Ash, to be yours and only yours because I want to be yours. I don’t want to be his any more. I want to stop feeling so heavy and empty all the time, so please just understand that I’m doing the best I can.”

For the first time in a long time, Ali has told the truth. She hates to be so honest about her heart, about how much something from so long ago still hurts her every minute of every day. It seems invalid, almost, and pathetic.

But Ashlyn, smart and funny and compassionate and generous and kind and brave and loyal, sees only the beauty of the truth. She sees only how glad she is to know that Ali can beat this, the heaviness she's fighting, the weight she's trying desperately to free herself of. And she wants it too, the freedom, the lightness, the love.

So she doesn't mind waiting, doesn't mind being the shoulder to cry on, doesn't mind feeling second-best to a man who died years and years back. She'd wait a million years to love Ali forever.


	29. greatest fear.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> We fear what we might become.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (i know i said the angst was almost over. it is. happy days ahead.) also, this isn't really a part of the relationship, but i had it on my mind and wanted to write it anyway. thank you all for your encouragement!

_Washington, D.C. March 2015._

_Paranoid._

_The word still hangs dense in your heart long after it is spoken, when she is asleep, her legs tangled with yours beneath the sheets, her head resting heavily against your shoulder. It remains there hours after the fact, after you have both apologized and you have shown her just how sorry you are with your tongue and your hands._

_She didn’t mean for you to take it like that, you know. She couldn’t have. If she hurts someone intentionally, she is quick to apologize for it — quick to say she is sorry, quick to put the biting guilt in her chest to rest. When you think about it, she probably didn’t even realize the weight of the words she threw at you when you were both angry and scared. She probably didn’t think twice about their meaning, about how they hold a different place for you than they do for most of the world._

_Insane._

_You can’t blame her, really you can’t, because for her, they’re just words. They’re just words with a dumbed-down meaning, with a different association for her than for you. They’re just words she associates with things that are beyond comprehension, that are “crazy” in the sense that they are unbelievable. To her, “paranoid” means “thinking too much, overanalyzing.” To her, “insane” means “too much to handle.” And you can’t blame her for that, either, not seeing things the way you do. Because she hasn’t had to deal with it, the real meaning of those words, and you have._

_She’d never played hooky in elementary school because it was her day to bring snacks and her mom couldn’t leave the house to deliver cookies or apple slices to her class, and she knew even then that she could not take another day of hearing her classmates disappointedly mocking her for “forgetting” or saying she had a bad mommy. She hadn’t had to learn to lie in a moment’s notice to explain why her mother wasn’t at the PTA meeting or the soccer game or the surf competition or the disciplinary meeting with the principal and her teachers — never had to say that her mom was “working the night shift” or “visiting her sick cousin” or “away on business in Miami.” She’d never taken the pitch with those words tossed carelessly at her, meant to throw her off her game — “your mom is paranoid” or “your mom is a psycho” or “your mom is insane.”_

_Schizophrenia._

_You learned what that word meant early on, when you were still a child. You had to grow up long before you should have when that word hit you like an eighteen-wheeler. It became a part of your life, and you don’t remember a time when you weren’t living with that word, schizophrenia. You don’t know any life apart from it, the girl whose mother has schizophrenia. In a way, it defined you. You never used those words as an insult, never used them to describe something incredible or seemingly “crazy.” You never threw out slurs before games, or even during them. And in part, you never saw your mother’s illness as a hindrance or a fault. It’s a part of her, not who she is as a person. If she could convey that to you, you know she would — no one thing should define you because you are not one word or one adjective or one anything except one heart. So you’ve tried. You’ve tried to not let those words bother you. They aren’t your mother, and if they can’t hurt her, they shouldn’t hurt you._

_Still, when push comes to shove, you’re loyal. At the heart of it all, no matter what, you are going to defend those you love. They can call you whatever they want. Homo, lesbo, faggot, whore, sicko, gay-wad — you’ve heard it all. You can let those roll off your back, confident in who you are and determined to not let one word define you as a human being. You see no need to engage people who taunt you and try to bring you down. They need not be acknowledged. But bring your family — your team, your loved ones, your people — into the mix? You can’t let those comments slide, the ones about your teammates and who they love and what they believe and how they look, the ones about your brother and your father and how they don’t make much money, the ones about your mother and her illness, the ones about Ali and her sexuality and her life. You push back against those hurtful words because you don’t want anyone you love to hurt the way you always do, even when you don’t show it._

_Paranoid. Insane._

_She didn’t mean them to hurt you the way they have. She didn’t want to keep you awake all night in this manner, her asleep on your bare chest and you up trying to shake the pain from two words spoken in anger and hurt. Her words still seem so far off, so minuscule in comparison to all you have heard in your life — all the hateful comments on where you come from or who your family is or who you love or how you dressed. She was scared, hurt by what you did, by what you read, by what you thought of her. And so she fought with her words, as she always does, almost reactionary at this point. She fought you without thinking about it, defending herself against your insecurities and pure doubts. They were only meant to make you see how you were acting, not to make you stare at the ceiling long after she fell asleep with a heaviness in your heart that makes your chest tighten and your pulse race._

_Fear._

_That’s what the heaviness brings. Fear. Because those other things people have said about you, they’ve been true, and you have long-since accepted them. You know you don’t come from money, from a giant waterfront mansion on Nikki Beach with a yacht. You know your family is not the most well-to-do group of people in the world — you’re all tattooed, all a little rough around the edges, all a little too loud and too honest with each other. You have known since you were rather young that you are gay — it’s never been something you’ve tried to hide or something that people can use to hurt you. You know that your clothes were sometimes torn or dirty when you were a child, and that was because your mother was too tired or too scared to get out of bed and wash your jeans before school._

_But paranoid? Insane?_

_You have watched your mother’s illness eat away at her for over two decades now. You’ve watched her live in her own world, one that rarely included you and your brother. You have been witness to the times she has tried to end it all, tired of being trapped in her own mind and being held prisoner to the thoughts she can’t control. You have cared for her as she stares into space with a blank look in her eyes, unable to recognize you as her daughter, the very one she gave birth to and nursed and prayed would grow into a strong little girl who loved the ocean as her brother and the sky as her friend. You’ve listened to her try to relay to you just how awful it is to be so alone in your own brain, so attacked by your own thoughts. You have seen your father and everyone who so loves your mother give their whole lives to care for her, to give up all they dreamed of to look after someone who is nothing short of a bomb with a short fuse, ready to go off at any moment._

_For as much as you love your mother, you are terrified of becoming her._

_If anyone were to ask you what your greatest fear is, you would lie, probably. You’d say it’s spiders. Being alone. Snakes, maybe, or wasps. You are barely able to admit it to yourself, that this person you love so much you’d die for her is everything you are scared of becoming. It almost sickens you when you think about it too much — she’s your mother, your lifegiver, your protector, your first friend, and you are paralyzed by the thought that you might one day become just like her. You are crippled by the idea of having to survive like that, unaware of all the damage you are causing and the people you are hurting and the lives you are ruining. You are terrified of being labeled as “paranoid” or “insane” because you have seen what those words look like, empty in the eyes and hollow in the cheeks, love absent from every action and sadness looming in any little thing._

_Paranoid. Insane._

_Your greatest fear is becoming your mother._


	30. the beginning.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ali's concussion and a World Cup announcement!

_Houston, Texas. April 2015._

_You find it too easy to get lost in what you’ve seen all too often as you stand nobly in your place between the goal posts, Ali streaking up and down the right flank with a ball at her feet and her back to you; you, barely able to train your eyes anywhere but on her blurred figure where the 11 on her jersey is almost all you can make out, and her, covering and marking and closing gaps before you have time to call out directions to your backline from your spot that seems almost tenuous when she is in front of you. Her effortless touch and instinctive resilience. Your eyes trained on her jersey, the number 11 darting across the pitch, and on the ball, at the feet of an orange-and-blue-clad adversary. The way you communicate with only glances and points of the finger; the way she seems to read your mind, moves a beat before you call out the order._

_It’s a difficult sight to forget, the way she lies motionless on the ground while you stand helplessly watching it all unfold before your eyes. You’ll store this picture somewhere in the back of your mind with the other things that come back and steal your sleep days, months, years after the fact — your mother with blood dripping down her wrists after she decided that she didn’t want to be trapped any more; the girl who was hit by a jetski while you surfed one day in high school; and Ali, sprawled face-down on the grass in Houston, Texas, only two months before the World Cup. It almost happens too rapidly for you to take it all in — a loose ball crossed across into the penalty area, possession going one of two ways, and her, ever the warrior, battling for it in the air. The sound, that sickening sound that you know better than you care to, of skulls cracking against one another._

_She has only just hit the grass when you throw your hands up in complete…well, you don’t quite know what, indignation that no foul has been called, anger that the challenge was so hard, fear that she’s hurt again, her knee or her leg or something worse even. You’re leaving your place between the posts before you can think twice — about all the rumors flying around about the two of you on the Internet, about the ball still in play, about the fact that Carli Lloyd has the ball again — and at her side in only a stride or two. The cluster of players around her, Jess McDonald in orange and Tori Huster in white, are slowly getting to their feet after the collision, patting her on the back as she lies face-down on the pitch. Medical staff is running onto the grass before they are waved on, already wary of the knock to the head she received. Carli joins you at her side in only a few seconds._

_The athletic trainer pushes you both out of the way, and the most terrified part of you almost fights back. You love her. You want her to be okay. You have the right to stay by her side until she is fine. But the slow realization that they don’t know that creeps in as you stand beside Carli, forced to act like just another teammate. You walk away for a second to regain your composure and get your hold back, and Houston’s captain Ella Masar takes your place at her head. It’s almost reactionary for you to stride back toward her in a borderline defensive manner, adamant that you are the one who will take care of her, and that part of your mind takes over for the rationality for a moment. Carli can’t stop you. Ella, however, notices, and brushes against your shoulders as you approach._

_“Cameras,” she says in a low whisper, nodding to the various angles from which this is being captured. “Watch yourself.” She looks around again and then directs her eyes to Ali, rolling over on the pitch. “That was a hard knock. I think she’s probably concussed. She’s coming to.”_

_(You throw a glare back at Carli as if to say, what the hell. She shrugs in return, cueing you in that she didn’t tell Ella about your relationship and it must have been Ali, who’s been friends with her for years and years now.)_

_As you walk up and bend at the waist to see her, the athletic trainer looks at her eyes and holds up one fist to wave on the paramedics. Your heart sinks. When they aren’t moving fast enough, you and Carli both wave them on with a bit more urgency than intended. Angrily, you make a comment to your teammate about how slow everybody seems to be moving when Ali is clearly hurt. By the time the cameras are turned back to where you are now kneeling at her side with Ella and Carli over your shoulders, Ali has opened her eyes._

_It’s clear immediately that she’s terrified. Her pupils are wide and dilated, filling up almost her entire cinnamon irises. Her gaze goes from the trainer, who’s about an inch away from her face steadying her neck, to Ella and Carli, their concern evident, to you. She’s looking to you for affirmation, for reassurance, for comfort. Slowly, your friends realize this and back away reluctantly, heading toward the benches for water and a towel._

_Ali bends her knees and relief floods her eyes when she confirms that her legs are fine, that she can walk and move and kick them without pain. You’re one of only a few people to know of her deep fears that resurface only before major tournaments — the fear that she’s going to be kept away from the game she loves due to injury, just like she was at the Olympics. The panic in her eyes slowly fades to confusion. Around you, the medical staff works, preparing a neck collar and a backboard to transport her off the field. She reaches for your hand and you take it without thinking._

_“I’m scared,” she mumbles, moving her head as you go to the other side of her so the paramedics can do their job._

_You nod and give her the best dimpled smile you can muster up. “Pretty hard knock you took, 11. I thought we agreed that we weren’t going to get hurt any more.”_

_She offers you a weak grin in return. “I’m not hurt, I’m just not sure of what happened.”_

_You laugh but look nervously at the EMT directly across from you, asking with your eyes if that’s normal. He nods. “Do you remember your name?” you ask, giving her hand a squeeze that implies you’re joking. (You’re not.)_

_For a heartbeat, as her eyelids flutter, she looks as though she does not. “Yeah. And I remember yours too.”_

_“Good. Do you remember where you are?”_

_Another weak grin and laugh. “H-Town hold it down.”_

_“Ha, ha. Very funny, Krieger.” You start to stand, knowing that Coach Mark Parsons will be wanting you on the sidelines to talk strategy in just a moment, but her hand grazes your calf as you move. “Hey. I’ll be right back. I’m just going to tell them that you’re okay.”_

_“Don’t leave me for too long. You know I hate being alone.”_

_You do your best to be reassuring as possible when talking to the team, but there’s no hiding the fact that you’re scared too. You don’t want to finish the game. You don’t want to keep taking shots from Houston. You want to stay by her side. You rush through the explanations and give a hasty speech to your modified backline before jogging back out onto the pitch, where the EMTs are securing Ali to the backboard._

_Relief floods her eyes the second she sees you back at her side. Tears have fallen now, and you know they’re probably because she doesn’t remember what happened and she’s scared of what this means for the World Cup. “You were gone for so long,” she says frustratedly, her fear taking the shape of anger. “You said you’d be right back.”_

_You decide not to tell her that you were gone for no more than half a minute and instead smooth her hair, placing one hand on her thigh. “I know, baby. I’m sorry.”_

_And there it was. You wince a bit. The pet name slipped out before you could even remember that there were people around you who have no understanding of what you share with Ali. Rather than correct yourself, you choose to say “screw it.” You don’t care right now. She needs you to be by her side and tell her that everything is going to be okay. As the ambulance sirens scream in the distance, quickly approaching, and she is loaded onto the stretcher, she clings tightly to your gloved hand._

_She turns urgently to you as she is being wheeled off the field, her hand still laced with yours. “I can’t feel your skin. It’s freaking me out. You feel like an alligator.” You resist the urge to smile. She’s still confused and scared._

_Instead, you slip off one glove. “Is that better, honey?”_

_“Much.”_

_A thought enters your head as you approach the point you will have to break off and leave her to rejoin the game. “Do you want to wave to the crowd, Alex? Let them know you’re okay?”_

_That single, strong wave makes the crowd go wild and your heart sing. She’s going to be just fine._

\- - - - - - - - - - - - - 

_The older you get, the more certain you are that the things you’ll remember are because of who you shared them with. This realization rings true when Jill calls you the next day as you and Ali are in a cab home from the hospital after she’s gotten the all-clear to return to D.C. with the team._

_“Ashlyn? Is Ali with you?”_

_Ali perks her head up from where it’s been resting on your shoulder and nods emphatically, motioning for you to put it on speaker._

_“She is, Coach. We’re both here.” You have a pretty good idea of what’s coming next._

_“Ali! Hello! How are you feeling? That knock scared us all pretty bad last night.”_

_They both laugh through the formalities and you squirm a bit in your seat until Jill finally lets her chuckle trail off and clears her throat. “I was going to call after the game last night, but I figured it wasn’t the best time. However, seeing as how you’re going to make a full recovery…I want you both to know firsthand that you’ve made the World Cup roster. Pack your bags; we’re going to Canada!”_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry again for the delay...some good World Cup things and a little bit of sad coming your way after this! (But don't let that worry you too much.)


	31. i believe that we just won.

_Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada. June 8, 2015._

_You weren’t supposed to be here._

_And it’s funny when you think about it that way, that you were never supposed to make it to this place. You weren’t supposed to be here, in this tournament, part of this team, a member of this family. Not after two ACL tears. Not coming from a tiny town in Florida that nobody leaves, not really anyway. Not with your mom being mentally ill. Not when you come from so little money, such little wealth. Not when you had been through hell and back to get here, scratched and clawed your way back up from the bottom so many times it seemed as though you’d never reach the top. Not when the odds have been stacked against you for so long._

_It wasn’t supposed to be you who broke the chain of mediocrity so many you loved had fallen into. Not you, the girl who was too loud and too temperamental and too “dumb” and too poor. Not you, the girl whose mother couldn’t even get out of bed. Not you, the girl who had to start over from the very beginning more than once. It was supposed to be someone much grander, who looked like more and came from more and did more. It was supposed to look different, too — it was supposed to be a grand spectacle in front of cameras and with a UNC flag draped over the table you sat behind as you put on the Tarheel blue hat and announced that you were going to play soccer from Anson Dorrance. Instead, it all happened from the quiet of your closet one afternoon when you called the coach to let him know that you wanted to play for him but your family couldn’t afford for you to do so._

_According to all the odds, all the statistics, all the research and charts and studies and reports, you shouldn’t be here. If you asked all the people you’d grown up with, you should be at home in Satellite Beach, married to an alcoholic who smokes cheap cigars and drinks Corona and wears Hawaiian shirts every day, pregnant with your fourth child, waiting tables or working in your grandma’s bakery for minimum wage. Or according to the professionals, the psychologists and the research analysts and the people who hang out in poor neighborhoods for a week or two just to collect data before they leave again forever, only to be heard from a year later when the information they put into a book is published and advertised on The Today Show or Good Morning America, you should be dead, probably. Addicted to six different drugs, living on the streets, always one hit, one shot, one pill away from overdosing._

_But you’re not. You had seen past it all, all the one-liners people used to try and define you — poor, gay, injury-prone, mediocre, stuck. You hadn’t let generations of lackluster hold you back or tell you what you should be. You had seen the light at the end of the tunnel, the opportunity to get out and stay out. And you had taken it. You took the chance._

_That chance saved you, and you’ve been chasing after it ever since._

\- - - - - - - - - - - - - 

_Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. July 5, 2015._

The roar throughout BC Place in Vancouver is already more than what Ashlyn can process. It’s almost deafening, reverberating in her chest so deeply that she can feel the cheers vibrating in her core. Almost any other time, she might have covered her ears, might have shouted just to be heard. But not today. Today, it doesn’t matter if she’s heard, if she can hear. It doesn’t matter if her yells echo louder than everyone else’s. All that matters is right before her.

Her team.

The women who, years ago, she thought may never become a part of her family. The women who have pushed her, encouraged her, challenged her, supported her, and — above all — loved her. The women who are clad in white, only blurs as they tear up and down the artificial green turf, the ball at their feet. The women who stand beside her on the bench, yellow substitute jerseys pulled over the clean white of their kits but nonetheless _belonging_. Nonetheless _supposed to be there_. Nonetheless _family._

\- - - - - - - - - - - - - 

_You should be more nervous._

_It’s the World Cup Final — your first — and you’re playing Japan. It should feel more like destiny, like it’s written in the stars for this to be how it ends up again. It should feel more like it did four years ago. You should be scared, you should be nervous, you should not feel so excited and happy and ready for what is to come._

_But it’s different now, you suppose, than it was four years ago. Whether you were there or not, you’ve spent the last four years — the last 1,460 days — working for now. There have been players come and go since then, ones who were marked as legends, ones who never achieved their dreams, ones who passed the torch on to the new generation — to the ones like you, the ones who weren’t in Germany, didn’t taste the defeat firsthand, didn’t have to feel the crash from the highest of highs to the lowest of lows within one half of a soccer game. A new generation has been brought into the game for today, this tournament, the future. And this team? This team is hungry — for requital, for a second chance, for a World Cup, for three stars. This team is ready to prove themselves to all the people who have watched and called it luck that they made it this far, to prove that this World Cup is theirs, to prove that all their work has paid off. They will stop at nothing to get what slipped out of reach four years ago._

_And it’s hard to be nervous when Carli scores a goal in the third minute of the game off a set piece. You are still holding your breath, not ready to celebrate yet because sometimes things seem like fate and end up turning against you. But then, Carli scores again two minutes later, and you try not to get too excited but you can’t help it — it’s starting to feel a little unreal. Lauren sinks one into the net less than ten minutes later, and you all lose it a little bit. This can’t be happening. Your heart is racing with adrenaline. You have never seen your teammates play with such ferocity, such tenacity, such heart. It’s beautiful. The game they are playing is beautiful. It’s perfect; it’s flawless; it’s the way it should be. Your nerves resurface when Japan slots two past Hope, one a beautiful shot that couldn’t be covered and one an own goal that bounced off Julie Johnston before anyone could do anything. But then Carli hits a brace, her hat trick that comes from the midline, and Tobin scores a few minutes into the second half, and it’s looking like all of your dreams are going to come true._

_You catch her eye in the eighty-sixth minute, and without words you say, “I love you. I am so, so proud of you. I can’t believe this is happening. You did it. We did it.” The tears that are already gathering in the corners of your eyes only spill over when she sends a toothy grin and a light-hearted wink your way as she runs up the flank and passes you. Beside you, your teammates have slung their arms over your shoulders and you all bounce, both nervous and excited, as the clock times out._

\- - - - - - - - - - - - - 

5-2.

That’s the score when three whistles are blown.

Before the roar of the stadium has reached the pitch, they are flooding onto the pitch, collapsing into piles on top of one another, falling to their knees as tears stream down their faces. The cheers of “U-S-A! U-S-A!” resound around BC Place, but all Ashlyn can hear is the sound of her heart beating, hammering against her rib cage, pounding in her ears as she runs onto the field and searches frantically for Ali.

In front of her, Ali is on her knees in the artificial turf, her face buried in her hands. Ashlyn’s heart floods with emotion. For as much as she wishes she had played this World Cup — she had logged even a few minutes, she had played just a game or two, she had been the savior the news outlets would talk about for years to come — all of her own insecurities fade away when she sees Ali overcome with emotion, sitting back on her heels as she weeps into her hands. The scar on her knee tells more than anything else. The turf on which she has just won a World Cup, achieved her dream, won three stars for her country, is the very same turf that stole her dream away three years ago. It’s the same turf that sent her spiraling back to square one, wondering if today would ever come for her or if it was time to hang up her cleats.

Jill swoops in and pulls Ali to her feet, supporting her and leading her back toward the pile of women in a heap on the pitch, crying and screaming and celebrating. You watch as she is engulfed and tackled into hugs by your teammates, and that’s when you know.

You want her. You want her by your side forever, living this dream, living this life, loving you. You want her now, when she’s accomplished nearly everything she’s put her mind to, on one of the happiest days of her life. You’ll want her on the bad days too, when you lose and when you fight and when she can’t shake the heaviness that seems to chase her down.

The World Cup, the three stars, the publicity and advancement today will bring to women’s soccer is big, but nothing is bigger than your heart for her.


	32. what comes next.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> What does it feel like when you achieve something you've worked your entire life for? It feels like a million bucks and a hangover. It feels like heaven and hell. It feels like everything and nothing. It feels like there should be more.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Covering some of the emotions that must be felt after something as huge as the World Cup ends. Mostly, it’ll be good, but there’s a certain sadness and heaviness that comes with the end of all things.

_Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. July 6, 2015._

It’s late in the night when it all hits her.

The parties have ended, the drunkenness is fading, the soreness from dancing is sinking in, the pure exhaustion has settled into her bones. It’s been hours now since those three final whistles blew, since the World Cup was placed in their possession, since the gold medals were draped around their necks. They have shared the win with those they love, their families and friends and trainers and those who have supported them since the beginning. The streets of Vancouver are still packed with confetti and red-white-and-blue streamers from the after effects of the final. In only a few hours, they will be awake again, in hair and makeup chairs so artists can attempt to disguise their hangovers for the presentation of their third star. They’ll be under the lights and on camera again, talking about what it means to end the “World Cup drought” in their nation, about what it means for them to get three stars above that U.S. Soccer crest, about what comes next.

She shouldn’t feel this way.

Not when there is still a gold medal draped over her naked chest. Not when Johnny Walker is still pulsing through her veins. Not when Ali is beside her, her bare body illuminated by a sliver of moonlight as she sleeps.

The emptiness hits her before the tears. Slowly, she has realized that she doesn’t know what comes next. She doesn’t know what to do when the last 29 years of her life have been put toward today, toward July 5, 2015, even when she didn’t know the date or the time or the logistics of it all. She’s spent her whole life working for this, for the World Cup win, for the gold that sits heavily on her abdomen as she is propped up in a hotel bed. And now? Now that a dream has finally come to be, now that a wish has been fulfilled?

She can’t quite describe what it feels like. After giving nearly her whole life to this game, to her country in a way most wouldn’t notice, to this team, this season of her life has come to an end. There will be Olympics, sure. Another World Cup, at least for Ashlyn — one that she’ll log minutes in, maybe even play every minute of. There’s still an NWSL season to finish out, and after that, there’ll be a Victory Tour. But the drought has ended. The World Cup chasing has come to its bittersweet end, one that they can all take pride in. Four years from now, when there is another Cup to win, it won’t feel like this. It won’t be something they’ve fallen short of so many times, something that hasn’t happened in sixteen years. It won’t be something that they are quite so hungry for, that retribution, that rematch, that redo they needed this time. And after so long, after so many years of giving her life to make today happen, she doesn’t know what comes next.

There’s an emptiness that comes with the finality of this era, the end of “Chasing Mia” and “The 99’er.” It’s fear, maybe, or uncertainty, because nobody quite knows what to do when this is all over. When the cameras are gone, when the media days are over, when the World Cup hype dies off. Or it might be that this life, the only one they’ve known for so many years, will not look like it has for much longer. Everything will change. Nothing will be as it has been. And the fact that it’s all changing so much, so fast…that’s the part that scares her the most.

\- - - - - - - - - - - - - 

As the sun begins to rise in a smoky haze over Vancouver, Ashlyn sits on the rooftop of the hotel with a steaming mug of coffee and her favorite shark slippers. She’s been awake all night with the exception of the short doze she’d taken after Ali had fallen asleep with her name still on her lips, and between the exhaustion and the amount of alcohol she knows is still in her blood, she’s going to need several more cups of black roast to make it through the day. With a sigh, Ashlyn cups her hands around the warm mug and breathes in the scent of the coffee. Mornings are the perfect time to clear her head, but today, her thoughts are only jumbled and messy. She wants to be alone, feel the quiet, feel the day beginning.

Someone plops down heavily beside her, and she sends a quick glance toward the shadowy silhouette in the Adirondack chair next to her own. Tobin’s willowy figure is cast in the orange glow of the rising sun, her hair pulled into a sloppy ponytail and her limbs lazy and loose. She’s pulled on her favorite UNC sweatshirt, the same one that Ashlyn still wears as well, and there’s a water bottle filled with fruit punch in her hand. They sit in silence for a few moments, watching the sun rise and listening to the sounds of early morning in Vancouver — the birds singing, the people returning to their normal lives of work and family, the sailboats leaving the harbor. Ashlyn lost count of how many mornings they shared at UNC, mornings just like this one — the quiet, the still, the uncertain as they headed into their futures — but the familiarity makes what comes next seem a little less scary.

Tobin finally breaks the silence, her knees drawn up to her chest as she stares off into the distance at the haze created by a wildfire miles away. “Cheney’s retiring,” she says nonchalantly, trying to hide the emotion in her voice.

“I’m going to propose,” Ashlyn returns with equal emotion, keeping her own gaze cast toward the horizon.

There is no reply from Tobin, but Ashlyn doesn’t have to look at her friend to know that she’s grinning — that small, childish grin that seems to radiate into even the most miserable of people. “Yeah?” she asks, and Ash can hear the smile in her voice.

“Yeah. But keep your fat mouth shut. It’s a secret.”

“Dude. Duh. Aren’t proposals normally a secret?” Tobin is teasing now, knocking her knobby elbows into Ashlyn’s side.

The joking lilt slips from her voice. “You’re going to have to keep this secret a little longer than you know how, Tobs. It’s not happening any time soon.”

And again, they are back to staring straight ahead at the sunrise trying to pretend that everything is okay. “Yeah?” Tobin asks again, quieter and more reverently this time.

She sighs. “I love her. I mean, I love her more than I’ve ever loved anyone before. I think that I love her so much, I would die for her. Sometimes I think that if I love her more, she’ll hurt a little less. But I don’t want there to be any doubt that she feels the same way about me. Right now she’s still a little in love with what her life might have looked like, with who she could have been if things had gone a different way. So for now, I’m going to let her learn to love again. I’m going to be waiting, and when she’s ready, I’ll be there.”

Another silence fills the air as Tobin leans her head on Ash’s shoulder. “You’re good for her; ya know that? And, these things — these people we put so much of our lives into — they’ll never be too far from our hearts. Ali, Cheney…it’s all going to be okay.”

\- - - - - - - - - - - - - 

It’s not until after all the lights are off, after all her teammates have retired to their rooms for the night, after the cameras have stopped flashing that she realizes the weight of the gold medal draped over her neck.

It’s even longer, after the gold confetti has been shaken out of her clothes, after the champagne has been washed out of her hair, after Ashlyn has disappeared from their hotel bed, before she lets herself feel everything. The rush of adrenaline, the happiness, the disbelief, the unbeatable high that came with those three final whistles. The heaviness, the sadness, the uncertainty of what comes next. In a few hours, she will be presented with a new jersey — one that has three stars over the crest on her chest. And in a few hours, she will be back on a plane to Washington, D.C. She’ll be going home.

_Home._

It’s such a strange word, because if you were to ask Ali where “home” was, she wouldn’t be able to give you a straight answer. For so long, she thought that “home” had to be one place. It scared her to call anywhere but Virginia her home. It scared her when Penn State felt like home, and when Germany felt like home, and when Sweden felt like home. _Home_ is D.C., is Virginia, is Frankfurt. _Home_ is Sonja and Svenja and Nadine all those years back. _Home_ is these twenty-two women, and all those who came before them and made this — the World Cup gold medal hanging around her neck — possible. _Home_ is Kyle. _Home_ is Ashlyn, mostly. It’s where she can wake up in her arms, smell her sweet shampoo, trace her tattooed ribs. She’s learned that “home” isn’t so much a place as it is a feeling, and “home” can be found anywhere if you are surrounded by the right people.

There is a knock on her door at about 7 in the morning. HAO is standing outside wearing a bright smile, her gold medal, and a “World Cup Champions” tee shirt. She’s way too happy for it to be this early for them to have all been so drunk the night before.

“G’morning, sunshine. I brought you coffee.”

Ali swings the door open a little wider and tries to hide the fact that only one bed was slept in the night before. Some days it’s still easy to forget that her team knows, especially after several magazines labeled her as an “out” athlete following a YouTube video she’d done with Kyle before the World Cup. Her cheeks still flush pink when Heather sits down on the made bed and hands her a styrofoam cup before commenting, “Good! Looks like you guys didn’t have sex in my bed!”

“Stop iitttt,” she mumbles, taking a large gulp of the steaming black liquid in front of her.

HAO turns serious. “Honest to God, how we doing this morning? Good? Bad? How are we feeling? We excited? Sad? Unsure?”

“I don’t know how to feel,” Ali admits. “I mean, I’ve wanted this since I was a little kid, and now that I’ve finally got it? I’ve spent most of my life waiting for this. The searching, the fighting, the waiting, it was hard. But knowing that it’s over? That I can let go? It’s hard. I don’t know how to do that just yet. I don’t know what my next step is; if there is one for me in soccer. I don’t know if I’m going to keep playing. I don’t know if I should go out on top or go for one more. I don’t know much of anything, really, except that now everything is different and my head hurts like hell.”

She tosses a pair of jeans and World Cup Champions tee her way. “Then let’s start with what you do know. Anything?”

“I know that I love Ashlyn.”

It comes out quicker than Ali intended as she pulls the black shirt over her head, and for the first time, it feels like the only truth in her world. She doesn’t know what’s going to happen in her career, with the team, or in U.S. Soccer, but she knows that she loves Ashlyn.

_She loves Ashlyn._

She watched her stand patiently on the sidelines at every game, biting her lip nervously, rocking back and forth on her heels with anticipation. She watched her work her butt off in training day in and day out, listening intently to what Hope and Graeme and Jill had to say. She watched her graciously and humbly cheer on her teammate, her mentor, when a penalty kick by Germany’s finest did not go in. She watched her encourage the team even when she wanted to be out there in goal, when she wanted to be their number one, when she wanted to be the one they looked to for support and instruction on the backline.

And in those little things, Ali has slowly forgotten to be in love in Jesse, with what today would look like if he were here, what their life together might have been. She has forgotten that he made life good, because Ashlyn makes it even better. She has forgotten that he should still have a piece of her heart, because Ashlyn has it all.

She may not know what comes next, but she does know something. She loves Ashlyn, only Ashlyn, forever.


	33. choose one.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A thousand words of fluff and fun that (may or may not) lead to some smut.

_Los Angeles, California. July 2015._

“Oh, God’s sake, Ali, just choose one already. We don’t have forever.”

Ali turns to give Kyle her best stink eye. “I don’t want to settle, Kyle. If I have to just choose, it isn’t meant to be.” She turns back to the red dress on the hanger, running her freshly manicured hands over the fabric. “Now, be honest with me. Is the red too flashy? Is the slit too suggestive?”

He does his best to look appalled and places one hand over his heart. “Honey, _no._ The more skin the better! Ashlyn will be going so crazy that you won’t even make it to the after party!” Ali crinkles her nose and shakes her head, and he nods. “Right. Okay. No sex talk with my baby sister. Really, babes, I love it. Red is totally your color and the slit does not show too much thigh. And the black for the ESPN Body Issue party. Those are the two you should get.”

She nods decisively and looks both dresses up and down again. “Are you sure? That’s a lot of money to spend on dresses…”

Kyle rolls his eyes more dramatically than Ali has ever been able to master and flips his hand in dismissal. “Oh please, sister. It’s an awards show where you are going to receive Team of the Year and a party to celebrate how good you look naked.” He pauses and smiles devilishly. “It won’t ever happen again, so you should soak up your fifteen days while you can before you go back into the woodwork.”

“Stop it,” she returns with a laugh, backhanding him lightly on the chest.

“Careful, you might break your hand on my abs of steel!”

Ali’s rebuttal is a signature sassy eye roll. “Please, do you even lift?” she asks, carefully draping both dresses over her forearm as she slips her wallet from her purse.

“Yes I lift!” he all but yells, feigning offense. “I lift In-N-Out from the table to my mouth.” His hand is still over his heart in indignation as they pay out. “I can’t believe my own sister would be so rude! Honestly Alex, let me have my internet fame back. People are starting to catch on that I have a sister who won a World Cup and it’s kinda killing my buzz.”

She winces at the total that flashes on the screen and goes to swipe her credit card before Kyle stops her.

“I’ve got it,” he says softly, replacing her card with his own.

“Kyle, you don’t have to do that. I’ve got lots of interviews, photoshoots, and endorsement deals coming in after this month — Nike, FoxSports, ESPN, and not to mention the World Cup money…”

He nods, smiling, and she notes the change from lighthearted teasing in his eyes to a gentle affection. “I have watched you chase this dream for so long, Ali, and now, when you’ve reached it and you’re finally getting some recognition for it, I want to do something for you. You’ve done more for me than I’ll ever be able to repay. And I want you to feel like a queen on Wednesday night. I want you to be the most stunning one in the room. You should have that.” He pauses, the moment getting a little too serious for his liking. “Also, I’m doing your hair.”

Kyle drops Ali off at the beachfront villa Ashlyn’s rented (claiming she’s “so done with hotels” for at least a few weeks) with her shopping bags and the dresses, along with a promise to bother her about hair and makeup every chance he gets, a few hours later. She opens the door with her foot, her arms too full to turn the knob, and pushes it open with her knee. It clatters shut behind her, and Ashlyn’s head shoots up from the couch.

“You’re back!” she shouts, and Ali can tell it’s more out of surprise than it is excitement.

Those suspicions are confirmed when Ashlyn slams her laptop shut and stands up. “I’m back,” she echoes, taking a few steps toward the couch and pressing a kiss to her lips. “Whatcha doin’?”

“Nothing, baby!” Ashlyn answers a bit too brightly. “Go upstairs and I’ll start on dinner. Do you want swordfish, salmon, shrimp, crab, or steak? Or all of the above since Dawn isn’t here?”

Ali smiles knowingly. “Alright, honey. I’m going to hang up my dresses for the EPSYs and Body Issue. And you can fire up that grill and make us some steak and shrimp and blackened swordfish, because you look so incredibly sexy doing it, and I’ll come down in your shirt and we can drink beer and watch the sun go down. And then, after we are both full and a little drunk, I’m going to take you to bed and I’m going to show you how much I love you and how much I missed you and how much I hated your no-sex-at-tournaments rule.”

Ashlyn’s mouth is hanging open by the time Ali is done speaking, a proud smirk spread across her lips.

“Or,” Ali adds as she turns to head up the stairs, “you can follow me up here and we don’t have to wait.”

“Oh, I’m waiting,” Ashlyn answers, her confidence returning to her. “I’m going to wait for you to get a few Blue Moons in your system, until you’re full on my delicious grilling, until your sexual frustration is about to boil over, and then I am going to show you how worthwhile it was to wait until we got home from Canada to have sex.”


	34. you'll always have me.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I’m sorry. I tried to write the smut but this kept coming up and IT WAS JUST SO MUCH CUTER THAN THE SMUT THAT I HAD TO DO IT I’M SORRY I MIGHT BE A LIAR. HERE’S SOME BEST FRIENDSHIP AND SOME FLUFFY STUFF AND SOME BITTERSWEET. THERE ARE TWO SIDES TO THIS TITLE. ONE IS THE END, ONE IS THE BEGINNING. (Also, I'm terribly sorry for the delay. My grad classes started back up last week and things have been crraaazzzzyyyy!!!)

_Washington, D.C. August 2015._

“You know how much I love you, right?”

Ashlyn raises her eyebrows and stares at her best friend, her brunette hair still tousled from sleep, and picks up the steaming mug of coffee in front of her. “But…?”

There is a shrug from across the table. “Why does there have to be a ‘but?’ I just really love you, Ash. You’re the best friend I’ve ever had. And I had a dog one time.”

She laughs, covering the brunette’s hand with her own. “There’s always a ‘but’ with you, Nik. You tell me how much you love me in hopes that it will make what you say next less offensive. It’s kinda your thing.”

Niki breaks into a grin and takes a large gulp of coffee. “You’re right, there is a but. But I’m retiring, and I swear to God that after this I’m done with ‘buts.’ I just love you and want you to have the best life you can.”

“Get on with it, old lady.”

Dramatically, Niki clears her throat and crosses her legs as she sighs heavily to create the scene. “I love you, Ash. I think you’re the coolest thing since sliced bread, you have killer style, your heart is bigger than anyone else I have ever met, and I want to adopt you into my family, but _dear God, woman_. Stop waiting for something to fall out of the sky or for the stars to spell it out for you and _marry Ali Krieger_.”

Ashlyn busts into a hearty laughter. “Niki Cross!”

She simply shrugs her shoulders again and takes another sip of her coffee. “I’m just sayin’, Harris. Your grandma is getting tired of waiting for a wedding, and so are all your friends. I say it with all the love in the world, but fucking put on your big girl panties, stop worrying about rejection, and fucking propose.” She pauses. “And I’m allowed to say that because you’re going to cry like a baby tonight on my behalf.”

Ash lets out a long sigh as she finally catches her breath from the stomach-aching laughter. She stares shyly at the mostly-eaten crepe on her plate and mutters, “I’m waiting for the right time.”

“Right time?!?!” Niki erupts in shock, almost spilling hot coffee in Ash’s lap as she tosses her hands up in surrender. “You’ve been in love with this girl since you met her, she fucking finally loves you back, and you’re _waiting for the right time?!?!”_

All she can do is nod weakly.

“Swear to God, Ashlyn, you are the biggest dumbass.” Another pause as she meets Ash’s eyes across the table. “I love you.”

“We’ll see how much you love me when you lose tonight,” Ashlyn returns firmly, downing the rest of her coffee and standing from her chair. “We should head out. You have a game to lose, after all.”

\- - - - - - - - - - - - - 

_Los Angeles, California. July 2015._

_“We only have a little bit of time before she’s on to us. Make it quick.”_

_“I’m trying! God, you can’t rush these things.”_

_“Well, make it a little faster. I’m starting to feel guilty.”_

_“Remind me again of why I told you of all people that I was going to do this.”_

_“Because you love me. What about that one? Or is it too big? Does she want big? Or nah.”_

_“Too flashy. It almost looks fake.”_

_“Whatever you choose will be perfect.”_

_“Thanks for the help.” (Sarcasm laid on heavily.)_

_“Oh, you know, just doin’ what friends do.”_

\- - - - - - - - - - - - - 

_Washington, D.C. August 2015._

“Are you okay?”

Ashlyn jerks her head up abruptly and swings her gaze over the locker room, which she’d presumed to be empty only a few seconds ago. Her eyes land on Ali lingering near the door, and she goes back to lacing her cleats and offers a casual shrug. “I’m good,” she insists as she pulls the long-sleeved warmup over her head.

“I’m just making sure,” Ali clarifies, and there’s not anything to suggest that she’s on the defensive. “It’s my job, ya know. As your captain. As your girlfriend.” She tries to ignore the name boldly printed across the back of Ashlyn’s jersey. _Cross._ “I know she’s your best friend. She’s been your best friend for a long time, and you’re allowed to be sad that she’s retiring.”

There’s a sigh from Ash, and for a moment Ali worries that they’re going to fight before the game begins. It’s either a hit or a miss as far as these conversations go with Ashlyn — she’s normally grateful that someone is encouraging her to be vulnerable, challenging her to search deeper and know life’s truths, but sometimes she gets put off by the hard conversations.

“I’m not sad,” Ashlyn finally says, standing and tightening her ponytail. Ali prepares herself to hear a lie. “I’m devastated. She was my first real friend in the professional soccer world. I had nobody. Before you, before Hope, before Whitney even, it was her. And in a way, she became my person. And I don’t quite know what this looks like yet, soccer without Niki Cross, and I’m really afraid that I won’t like it at all.”

Ali gives the locker room one more check before pressing a chaste kiss to her lips. As hard as it is, she’s learning to accept the fact that sometimes her words will fail her, will fail to be enough. So for now, when she has nothing to say to convey how deeply she’s feeling this too — this loss for the Houston Dash, for the NWSL, and especially for the woman she loves — she’s trying to be okay with the fact that a kiss is both the most and the least she can offer.

\- - - - - - - - - - - - - 

_Los Angeles, California. July 2015._

_“This is the one.”_

_“You sound pretty certain.”_

_“I am certain.”_

_“It’s just, you don’t think it’s maybe a bit much? I mean, I always saw her as more of a simple band and small diamond kind of girl.”_

_“This is the one.” (No trace of doubt whatsoever in her strong voice.)_

_“Okay. You know her better than I do.”_

_“I know.”_

_“Right.”_

\- - - - - - - - - - - - -

_Washington, D.C. August 2015._

They win.

It’s not a surprise, of course. Crystal Dunn does some very Crystal-y things and scores a hat trick; Ashlyn Harris does some very Ashlyn-y things and saves a bunch of goals.

What’s more surprising is how heavy Ashlyn feels after the game ends, after the scoreboard has been timed out to 0:00 and Washington 0 - 0 Houston, after jerseys have been signed and pictures taken with fans who traveled from near and far to see them play, after all the stadium has emptied and the only people lingering are Niki, Ashlyn, and a few members of both teams’ coaching staff on the pitch. She thought that she had shed all her tears, that she had nothing left in her to cry, but the sadness hits her all over when she notices that it is once again Niki at her side after the game, staring at the moon overhead and the glow of city lights.

“So this is it then,” she begins. Niki doesn’t respond. “It always has been you, ya know,” she manages to say shakily, making sure that she does not make eye contact with her best friend when the words leave her mouth. “Always you who pushed me to be better, to love who I love, to be who I am, to never give up.”

Niki remains silent at her side, and Ashlyn doesn’t dare look at her for fear that she’s crying. Instead, she keeps speaking, hoping that if she rambles long enough the realization in her heart will go away and be replaced with something that hurts a little less.

“I keep thinking that I can talk you out of this,” she says, her eyes still trained so intently on the fence ahead that her vision is blurring out of focus. “Keep thinking that I can make you stay.” She pauses and rocks back and forth on her heels, feeling instinctively for the gloves tucked into the waistband of her shorts. “And then I remember how selfish that is, to want you to stay in a place you’re ready to leave; to deny your happiness and your future for the sake of mine.” Another hesitation. “But God, I’m just realizing that I didn’t do enough when we still had each other all the time. There was so much I could have done better, so much I wish I’d said before today, and now I’m left with all these words jumbled up in my head that won’t come out the way I want them to and this heaviness, this emptiness, and I know I am so incredibly selfish but I am so damn tired of saying goodbye and everyone is retiring and I wish that you weren’t leaving me and I’m so angry that people keep on leaving.”

It’s this that makes Niki snap her head to the left and stare hard at Ashlyn. “Who says I’m leaving?”

“People always say that when they leave, you know. ‘It’s not a goodbye, it’s a see you later.’ And for a few months, maybe a year or two if you’re really lucky, they’re right. You call and text and Skype and plan visits that never actually happen because life is so hectic and you are ‘waiting for things to slow down.’ But life doesn’t slow down or stop for anybody, and before long you blink and you’ve missed it all, and those people who were once in your life, who promised they’d stay forever, they’re nothing but a memory.”

There is a flash of anger in Niki’s eyes before it melts into understanding. “I’m not those people, Ash. I know there have been a lot of people in your life who have come in and left not too long after they made you believe them, and I know that you get scared by how temporary we human beings are, but I’m not going anywhere.” The dam breaks and she pulls Ashlyn into a tight cocoon. “I swear, you’re not getting rid of me that easy. I’m going to be at all of your games yelling like a soccer mom in a Harris jersey, and I’m going to show up at your door unannounced so have a spot for me always in your home, and I’m going to be there when you propose, and then I’m going to be in your wedding and be your children’s godmother and corrupt them into Bayern Munich fans.”

Ashlyn has to laugh at her friend’s honesty and the attempt to make her feel better, but the laughter soon gives way to another round of tears. “What am I going to do without you, Nik? You’re my person. You’re it.”

Niki pushes back and grips Ashlyn by her arms, between her elbow and shoulder. “I am not your person, Ash. Ali’s your person, and you’re your own person, and I’ve never been more proud of someone than I am of you every single day, kid. You’ll always have me.”

\- - - - - - - - - - - - - 

_Washington, D.C. August 2015._

_“She’s going to beat you to it if you don’t do it soon, ya know.”_

_“I always take care of her first.”_

_“I didn’t need to know that.”_

_“You have a dirty mind.”_

_“Don’t act like that’s a new thing.”_

_“I’m just saying, she's first. This probably isn’t even on her radar.”_

_“You know what they say about assuming…”_

_“It’s not assuming when you know it’s the truth.”_

_“You are so going to lose this one.”_

\- - - - - - - - - - - - - 

_Washington, D.C. August 2015._

It’s something they’ve done hundreds of times, maybe even thousands by now — a hot shower, a cold beer, a movie that normally shuts off fifteen minutes in when Ali falls asleep with her head in Ashlyn’s lap after she insisted that she was going to stay awake the whole time for this one. It always happens that Ali stirs when Ashlyn sinks from sitting cross-legged on the bed to her pillow and turns off the lamp, and they talk quietly for a few minutes about life. They ask questions, mostly — how did you feel today, what made you happy, what made you sad, what do you wish had gone differently, what made you feel alone, what made you laugh. And then they fall asleep, sometimes mid-conversation, sometimes after exploring the other’s body. It’s become almost routine after the past five years, since they first became friends, and Ashlyn wouldn’t have it any other way.

This night is no different. Ali is asleep seven minutes in to “She’s The Man,” and when Ashlyn switches off the TV and leans toward the lamp, she awakens. In the darkness, it’s difficult to see where one ends and the other begins, but Ash can make out the curve of Ali’s jaw and the gentle dip of her throat. They talk for a moment, each mesmerized by the other. They talk about the day, about Niki and retirement and soccer. They talk about loneliness and leaving, and promise that there’s no running from the other. Ashlyn isn’t sure how, but they end up on the topic of cats and it’s then, as they laugh about the hairless cat named George their neighbor paid upward of a thousand dollars for, that she feels Ali press up behind her in the dark and hold her tighter than she ever has before.

“Marry me,” Ali breathes into her shoulder.

It takes her by surprise, and she can’t do anything but let her laughter trail off as she stares at the woman beside her, wrapped up beneath the sheets.

“Marry me,” she says again, and Ashlyn can see everything in her eyes — the stars and the moon, the brokenness, the childlike hope, the scars of the life she’s lived, the bright flicker of the dreams that have all come true, the parts of her soul that she’s afraid for anyone to see but that Ashlyn has seen and loved. “Marry me, and we’ll spend our weeknights drinking red wine and watching old movies. Marry me, and we can dance in the kitchen like we’re drunk when we’re really just in love with life and each other. Marry me. Let’s paint the walls white and host parties with champagne and dancing and New Year’s Eve kisses. Marry me, and promise that we can eat ice cream in bed and ditch karaoke bars for wine in the bathtub. Marry me, and you’ll always have me. All you have to do is say yes. Marry me.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope that the conversations without any clue to who was speaking weren't too hard to understand! The first two were Ali and HAO picking out Ashlyn's ring, and the last one was Niki and Ashlyn picking out Ali's ring. (Clearly there's some good stuff to come!)


	35. forever.

_Washington, D.C. August 2015._

_Since the first time you saw her, you’ve known. She’s it for you — always has been. Because sometimes, you still replay it in your head, that first day — her untied shoes, the flustered look on her face, windblown hair, clumsy feet; the way her laughter rang out in the lobby, how she made your throat dry and your heart numb, the low mumble of her voice as she spoke, and how you knew it then, that you wanted and needed her to be yours — and you can see it all. It’s been there since the beginning, that one truth you know better than anything else in the world — she’s it for you. All the signs were there, written out in the sky for you, and, looking back, you should have seen it from the first day — it’s her._

_She makes it easy to yes — to say yes to life, to happiness, to the ending every person deserves. And to the smaller things too, like dessert before dinner and an extra hour in bed and dancing in the kitchen and waking up at two in the morning to watch a meteor shower on the balcony. Because since you were little, it’s been hard for you to say yes to the big things that seem to be a given for other people — to a good life, to what you’ve always dreamed of, to things that are great. And she makes it easy to believe that you deserve what everyone else does — a future, happiness, a fairytale ending. She’s an easy person to say yes to, as well — to the purse, the shoes, the ice cream, the trip, the expensive coffee, the new earrings. You suspect it’ll always be that way; she has you wrapped around her finger._

_So it’s easy to say yes to marrying her. Easier than you thought it would be, in fact. It’s easy to let the word slip from your lips in almost a breath, “yes,” like your life depends on it. And in a way, maybe it does. Because if you said no, if you didn’t spend the rest of your life with her at your side, the skies would never be as blue, the stars never as bright, the wins never as sweet and the silver medals always a little too heavy. Your grandmother always warned you about this, about becoming so dependent on another human being that it physically hurt to be without them, and now you know why — you hate it when she’s gone, even if it’s just for a day or two, or even if it’s just while she’s at the grocery store. You sleep better when she’s with you, curled into your side and you can feel her breath tickling your arm. You make her feel safe, and she makes you feel needed._

_Everyone is leaving. Niki’s gone, and Cheney too, and you’ll probably see others leave soon as well — women who have become your family, who’ve paved the way for those three stars. One woman was your person, your best friend, the first person who made you feel like maybe you did have a home, like maybe there was someone who could care enough about you to take care of you, give you shelter and food and support, and more than that friendship…community…sisterhood. She was your role model…your mentor…your biggest fan. You were her pride and joy. And the other has more honor in her baby toe than most — maybe you included — have in their whole body. She taught you more about love, respect, faith, family, and legacy than anyone you have ever known — and she’s only 28. You’ve tried to hide it, but you feel as though you’re losing two friends._

_She’s staying._

_For as much as people are moving forward, looking to the next parts of their lives, Ali wants to stay. The next step — in her life, in her career, in every day life — she wants to take with you. No matter who comes, who goes, who leaves the game long before their professional welcome has run out, she’s staying. No matter how messy it may get, how many fights you’ll have, how much baggage you both carry — she’s staying. She doesn’t know what’s to come in the next few months, what’ll happen after Rio, what the next step in her career looks like, but she does know one thing — you’ll be there. You’ll be by her side no matter what she chooses to do, if she chooses to hang up her cleats after that Olympic gold medal is draped over her chest, if she wants to keep playing, if she wants to move across the world and play again. But if she chooses that, you’ll follow her there._

_You are still surprised when you wake up and see the ring on your finger, the silver band with three single diamonds set. (She’d explained that HAO thought it was for “three stars” — apparently they’re still on a World Cup high — but it was actually just really pretty. And then she’d paused and told you that you could take what significance you want from it, but it’s just the most “Ashlyn” ring she could find.) A warm feeling settles in the bottom of your stomach, and suddenly you can’t stop staring. At the ring. At her. At the way she sleeps, bathed in a glow of midmorning sunlight and wrapped in the white sheets. And when you think about it that way, that you get to wake up to this every day for the rest of your life — your heart starts racing and your mouth goes dry._

_For as long as it’s been, for as long as you’ve loved her, for as long as you’ve dreamed about this day, she can still take your breath away. She still can make your stomach knot up and your pulse quicken and your mouth stop working. You hope it’ll stay that way forever, you being completely knocked off your feet — completely floored in love for this girl who loves chocolate and shoes more than should be allowed, who has a heart bigger than anyone, who stays up too late and talks too much._

_Forever._

_That’s a long time to love someone, but you know that it will seem like a blink in eternity with her. If you could make your own little world, your own bubble, just the two of you…if you could stay in this place forever…it still wouldn’t be enough for you to love her._

_Forever sounds like a good place to start, though._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If anyone has any ideas for this, they're welcome. Between class and family, I don't have much time to think and I'm feeling a little burned out.


	36. all that is good.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The end.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So we come to an end. Thirty-six chapters is more than I ever thought I could write. Wow. You guys made this possible. This is more than I’ve ever written…it covers a broad spectrum of time and a lot of topics… Thank you for dealing with me for so long. I hope that I can bring some Ali and Ashlyn happiness to the table.

Washington, D.C. October 2015.

Your mother’s a lot of things.

Smart, for sure — brilliant, even. Quick with numbers, exquisite with her words, good at science and especially fond of history. Tough — she taught you to stand up for yourself, to punch without hurting your knuckles, to fight only if you were threatened and to win that fight. She was strong — she made sure you knew that there’s beauty and strength in being vulnerable, in being able to admit your weakness and defeat, in accepting the breakdown. She loved a lot of things — she gave you a love for the ocean, an appreciation for sunrises, and a heart for rainy days. And thoughtful, very thoughtful — always doing something for someone else, helping with someone’s kid or cooking them a meal or buying their bus ticket.

She was also sick.

For as much as your mother was smart, tough, strong, loving, thoughtful, she was also sick, and you have always feared that this is how you’d remember her — sick. Not how she helped you with your algebra in high school when you were on the cusp of being on the “fail” list during soccer season, because for as much as she was trapped in her mind, numbers still made sense. Not how she looked you in the eyes when you were nine years old, wiped the tears off your cheekbones, and taught you the quiet humility you’d use to shut down those who threatened you or your family. Not how she held you as you cried and reminded you of how much strength it takes to be vulnerable. Not how she’s the one who led you onto the porch early in the mornings to watch the sun rise or that she’s the one who gave you the ocean or that she’s the one who danced in the kitchen when it rained. You’ve always been afraid that you’ll remember her with empty eyes, sitting in a wheelchair with her hands folded in her lap and a blanket secured over her thin, atrophied legs as she stared at nothing, or maybe it was something that you couldn’t see, something locked in her mind.

How wrong you were.

How incredibly narrow-minded and sad you were to think that you’d remember your mother, the one who taught you most everything you know, for anything but how she was always willing to help you — quiz you on spelling words, give you dates to memorize, show you how to do your math homework, stand up for yourself and others, accept love, learn to find beauty in the small things. How very wrong you were to believe that you’d remember her only as “sick,” as stuck in her own thoughts and unable to break free from the heaviness that haunted her. Because while she may have been sick, she was so much more than her illness. She was so much more than just a word or two that doctors and psychologists and even family had used to try and define her. She was brilliant and beautiful, strong and kind and independent, creative and generous and loving. She was everything.

The call came in at one twenty-three in the morning.

It’s funny, because you remember being a little kid and knowing that if the phone rang after nine pm, something was wrong. You would be as still as possible in your bed while straining to hear what your dad was saying on the phone, and then you’d wait. You’d wait for him to come into your bedroom and deliver whatever bad news had come. It’s not any different now that you’re nearly thirty. It’s Ali’s phone that rings, and she moves in a half-asleep daze from where she’s curled into your side in your favorite long sleeved UNC tee to her side of the bed to pull her phone carelessly from its charger. A strange peace has settled over you. You have no clue who has called, or what they’re calling about, but you do. You know who it is and what has happened before she says a word.

Your mother slipped away peacefully sometime in the night, out on her balcony watching the stars over the water as she sat in her wheelchair with that same blanket tucked securely around her legs — the blanket your grandmother gave her when she married your father. It was the way she’d have wanted to go — quietly, without any fuss or drama and while watching the ocean that she loved so dearly. You wonder which emotion you should feel first — relief that your mother, for all her suffering, is finally free from the bondage of her mind, or deep sorrow for yourself, because there will not be another Mother’s Day or another birthday or another visit to see her and watch her paint. And while you know that sadness is supposed to be the natural reaction to death, your first instinct is to be thankful — thankful that she is not bound any longer, thankful for the life she lived, thankful for the weight that has been lifted.

You know that tomorrow will be hard. There will be a funeral to plan, an obituary to write, memories to go over. But for now? For now you can be thankful. For now you can curl back into Ali, breathe in the scent of her shampoo, her shirt, her warm skin, and know that you aren’t alone in facing the world in a few hours.

\- - - - - - - - - - - - - 

Satellite Beach, Florida. October 2015.

Home feels different without your mother.

Which is weird, because she hasn’t lived here in years. She hasn’t slept in that big, sagging bed with a worn quilt beside your father each night or stood at that gas stove baking macaroni and cheese or cleaned her grandson’s tiny hand smears off the sliding glass doors. She hasn’t swept the bowing wrap-around porch or fixed the crooked pictures on the walls up the stairs or dusted the ceiling fans or beat the rugs in the entryway. And still, home does not feel like home for the first time in your life. Because, even though it’s been a long time since this was the place your mother called home, it’s different knowing that she’s not here at all — in Orlando, in Satellite Beach, in Florida, or even in this world.

Not necessarily bad different, just different.

(Well, probably bad different, when you think about it, because it’s not just that she isn’t home, it’s that she can’t come home. She can’t wash the windows or peel potatoes or decorate the Christmas tree. She can’t stand on the deck and paint the ocean or straighten the picture of you in third grade that always hangs at an angle in the hallway. It’s not that she isn’t home. It’s that you aren’t.)

There’s an entire spread of pictures in front of you on the dining room table. Your mother, pregnant in a high school graduation robe. With your father at prom. With a surfboard tucked beneath her arm in middle school. Standing on the beach with Chris in her arms. With you in the hospital, minutes after you were born. Gardening. Painting. Driving your grandfather’s old truck. With her brother, your uncle, standing knee-deep in the surf, and then again on the Golden Gate Bridge with one foot in California and the other in Oregon. There she is only a few months ago, holding the World Cup with that same blank stare in her eyes and you crouching beside her, a smile on your face lighting up the entire frame. There’s one of her holding your nephew, Jack, and she looks like she maybe had an idea of what that moment meant to her…your brother…your family.

Ali is better at this stuff than you are.

You try not to think about why she’s better at this, at planning funerals, than you are, but it’s inevitable. Since the moment you landed in Orlando, she’s been in charge. You’re grateful for that — your whole family is grateful, you can see it in their eyes. Nobody knew what to do before she got here. You found them sitting in your living room staring between the floor and the walls and each other without a clue of what to do next, and Ali had taken over. She’d called the funeral home — there’s only one in Satellite Beach — and notified them of the arrangements. She’d started a list on a yellow legal pad of who brought what — flowers, condolences, meals — and helped write an obituary for the paper. She’d gone with you and your dad and your brother to the funeral home, and when they had asked what your mother would be buried in and none of you had known what to say, looking between each other with wide eyes and open mouths that couldn’t find words, she’d nodded knowingly.

“The white dress, the one with the flowers that she wore at Chris’s wedding. It was her favorite dress. She should be buried in that.”

She’s been in full-on boss mode since you arrived, and while it’s evident that you’d all be lost without her, it isn’t lost on you that there’s a weariness and a tiredness in her eyes that you haven’t seen in quite some time. She’s keeping herself busy with this, with getting the flowers sent to the church and taking the name of everyone who sets foot in the house with a casserole or a pie or a plate of brownies or a pot of flowers, so she doesn’t have to think of the funeral she planned years back. You notice, though. You notice how she refuses to be idle for even a minute — vacuuming the house, dusting, organizing the fridge, boxing up portions of food for Chris and his wife to take home, making sure all the family in town has a place to sleep comfortably. You notice how anxious she gets when she doesn’t know what to do for a split second; you watch her hands flicker instinctively to the thin silver chain hanging around her neck and the ring that hangs beneath her shirt, toying with it antsily for even a beat before she decides where to go next.

The preacher is in your house now, the one from the church your grandma has played piano in for decades. Seated around the table where pictures of your mother in black and white are arranged in perfect order are you, your brother, your dad, and your grandma. Ali stands off to the side leaning against the doorway to the kitchen, out of the way enough to leave this a family issue but close enough to step in if need be. Maybe everyone has cried all the tears they can cry, or maybe you are all numb enough by now that they’ve all dried up, but it’s easier to talk about your mother than you thought it would be. You’re sharing memories around the table, trying to decide which stories this preacher should tell when talking about your mother at the funeral tomorrow, and there’s more laughter than there is sadness.

You watch your grandmother howl with laughter as she recalls the time she met your mother — she was sneaking your dad out the window of his room to go to some beach bonfire a senior was throwing when the two were just freshmen, and rather than act defeated and sheepish your mom had boldly said, “I’m gonna borrow him for a bit, okay?” Of course, that’s not how your dad remembers it — he remembers your mother being a bit more reserved and coming up with a lie about how they had geometry homework to go over. He adds that he knew from that day on that your mom was it for him. She was his soulmate. Your brother talks about the time she nearly burned the house down baking cookies for a church potluck meal and showed up a few hours later with Walmart cookies. And you can’t help but feel angry, because the stories that come to mind aren’t ones that make you laugh. They’re the ones of her missing your soccer games and your surfing competitions; you skipping school to forgo the humiliation of not bringing the class snacks.

“Excuse me,” you finally mutter, pushing back from the table and ignoring the sound of your chair scraping the wood floor. You nudge past a relative — a second or third cousin, you think — and lunge onto the back deck, taking a deep breath of ocean air.

Ali follows.

“Hey,” she says softly, and that’s all it takes.

You turn to her with anger and hurt burning in your eyes. “Why me, Alex?!” you burst, hitting your fist against the wooden railing. “Why did it have to be this way?!”

And as usual, she lets you feel it all. She doesn’t try to talk you out of your emotion or invalidate your anger.

“I mean, they’re in there telling stories about this woman who was so smart and so bright and so funny and so full of life, and all I can think about is how I was cheated out of a mother!”

She winces, crossing her arms over her chest and taking one small step backward to give you room — to vent, to be upset, to be confused.

“This woman they’re talking about, I never knew her! The girl who snuck my dad out of his house past curfew and went midnight surfing and won art contests?! The mom who baked cookies for church potluck?! I didn’t know her! I didn’t know a mom who told funny jokes at the dinner table or said ‘fuck off’ and called me ‘imaginative’ at parent teacher conferences when the teacher told her that I was unruly or wild! I knew a mom who was scared to leave her house, who never knew what day it was and who never watched me play soccer. I knew a mom who forgot my name and didn’t smile and only ever knew the sadness and bondage of her own mind. And you know what?! I loved her! I loved her even though I knew she could break, even though I knew that she would never be able to feel the same things for me that I felt for her! I loved her when I knew that she’d never be the mom everyone else had, and now?! Now that she’s gone and I’m left here?! I’ve been cheated out of a mother again.”

Ali watches carefully as you turn to face the ocean, unable to look her in the eyes, and moves forward slowly without a word. She slips her arms around your waist from behind and rests her head on your back, between your shoulder blades, and you hear the tiniest sigh escape her lips.

“It’s just not the way I thought it’d be, I guess,” you finally mumble, calmed by her even breathing against your back. “I never really thought I had a mother growing up, and now that I’m older, now that I’m old enough to know that she’s always been my mom even when I didn’t think she cared, she’s gone again. And I would give anything to be able to know her the way they knew her, not as someone who missed soccer games or even as someone who snuck my dad out of his house when they were younger, but as my mom. As someone who loved me and cared about me and wanted the best for me.”

She doesn’t say anything for a few moments, and when you twist in her arms to look at her, her eyes are half-lidded as she tries to blink back the tears that have gathered there. And without saying a word, she slips a wrinkled, worn slip of paper into your hand and turns to go back inside.

You know better than to be confused by most anything Ali does, so you wait for her to let the door fall shut before you unfold the yellowing paper. The ink on the page is smeared, like someone has read this hundreds of times and treasured it so. Immediately you recognize your mother’s loopy, shaky handwriting, and you inhale sharply as you sink to the sagging steps to read. Already the tears are gathering in the corners of your eyes, blurring your vision as you see the date and realize that this was not long ago, that your mother wrote this for you while she was sick, when you thought she didn’t know who you were, when it was hard for her to even get out of bed and take medication. Your tears fall onto the yellowed paper, and you know how much your mom must have read this, held this, cherished this.

And with one more shaky breath, you begin to read.

July 5, 2015

My darling, darling girl.

My wild. My whisper. My loud. My stillness. My magic. My everything.

Today, you won the World Cup.

Sometimes I remember that you are grown up now, that you have made a career and a name for yourself, built a future for yourself, and I start to feel as though I have missed the most important moments of your life. Dear me, where has time gone? What happened to orange slices during half time, juice pouches on the beach, and parent tunnels onto the field? What happened to that tiny girl who ran with the boys, wore a helmet too big for her head, and who never let anyone stop her? How did I blink and miss all those milestones, those soccer games and graduations and medals and those defeats? And then I remind myself that those days may be gone, but that little girl isn’t. That little girl with the wild hair…the stubborn glint in her eye…the determination in her heart…and the fight in her bones is still here, only now she’s nearly 30, a little taller and a lot stronger.

I may have missed a lot of your life, honey, but I didn’t miss tonight. I was with you in Vancouver. I was with you in my red-white-and-blue, singing the national anthem and cheering and making those nurses worried! I was cursing at the television! I watched you and I watched Ali and I watched your team — your family — claim what is rightly yours, something that you’ve worked your whole life for: the FIFA World Cup. (Side note — I know you must be so proud of Ali! She really is quite amazing! Good job, honey — good taste in women! You get it from your father!) And as I watched that confetti rain down, those tears fall down your faces in disbelief, those fans going wild for this team — their team — I was proud.

But I have never been more proud of you than I am now, watching you live a beautiful life with the woman you love. Of course, I’m a mother, and mommies know these things — you never really had to “come out” to us, and I’m so glad that you knew even then that we’d love you unconditionally and do our best to not be surprised by much of anything you or your brother did. You have accomplished so many terribly wonderful things, darling — so many medals and trophies and cups and gloves. But as your mother, there is nothing I want more for you than for you to experience true love. From the day you were born, I knew you were going to be great — brilliant and kind and spirited and hardworking and strong and independent and brave. And from that moment on, all your father and I have ever wanted for you is happiness. We wished for you to be courageous, to be good hearted and helpful, to be all you have ever wanted to be, but there is nothing we prayed for more than your happiness. We prayed that you would find someone whose heart was big enough to hold yours, whose smile lit up the room, whose love would remind you that there are still sunrises to see and oceans to surf and goals to keep. We prayed that you would believe in real, big, unconditional love.

Take away all the titles, all the endorsements, all the medals and the followers and the fame, and I would still be so incredibly proud to be your mother. I have not been everything a mother should be to her daughter. I have not braided your hair, baked your class brownies, handed out snacks after games or worn your jersey in the stand or taken too many pictures when you graduated college. I have not painted your nails or taken you shopping or talked with you about relationships and sex and birth control. But for as much as I couldn’t be everything to you, you are everything to me, honey. For as much as I couldn’t be the mommy you deserved, you are every mommy’s dream. You are talented. Successful. Humble. Gracious. Kind. Servant-hearted. Brave. Creative. Loved. Simply incredible, dear. You are all that is good.

I am proud of you, honey. Be careful out there.

Mama

\- - - - - - - - - - - - -

Washington, D.C. Early December 2015.

“Ashlyn.”

You look up from the soup you’ve been preparing for dinner and glance at Crystal as she sits at the kitchen island with a laptop and a white-and-gold bound notebook.

“I see that you haven’t named anyone as your maid of honor for the wedding.”

Ali looks up in surprise from where she’s packing for you, Crystal, and herself to head to Houston for the last game of the Victory Tour. “That’s interesting. Ash, honey, you told me you had someone.”

Crystal nods in agreement, glancing to the planner in front of her and noting a few blanks on a page. You recognize it as hers and Ali’s wedding planning book.

“Whit’s my best man.”

“Ashlyn,” Ali says practically, sounding for all the world like her mother, “Whitney cannot be your best man. Whitney is a girl. What about your brother?”

You shake your head stubbornly and continue to stir the soup nonchalantly. “Whit’s my best man. If Kyle can be your maid of honor, Whit can be my best man.”

A hint of annoyance flickers in Ali’s voice. “We can’t put that on the programs, Ashlyn. We can’t have ‘maid of honor’ beside Kyle Krieger and ‘best man’ beside Whitney Engen. People will think it’s a typo.”

“Perfect. We’re the type of couple who would have typos on our wedding programs.”

Crystal glances between the two of you uncertainly for a few moments. “You could flip them. Kyle’s best man and Whit’s maid of honor.”

“Whitney’s never been a maid of honor a day in her life and Kyle would die if we put ‘best man’ beside his name.” You pause. “And I don’t want to wait until August to get married. I want to get married now.”

“Kyle was best man at Dad’s wedding,” Ali says with finality, looking for the matching sock to put in Crystal’s bag. “He’ll be fine with being best man at mine.”

(You smirk at the latest text message from Kyle on your phone: “hell yes I’m the maid of honor!!!! or if you want to jazz/gay it up a little, I can totes be the bitch of honor or the bridesman or the best bitch or something else clever. I have lots of ideas!!!!!”)

“He wants to be the maid of honor,” you tell them, stirring the soup carefully. “And Whitney wants to be my best man.”

Crystal shrugs and begins to write it down in the planner before Ali stops her. “Crystal! No!” She turns to you, hands on her hips. “Have you even asked Whitney to stand up for you at the wedding yet?” You shrug. “Ashlyn.”

“I don’t think I really need to ask. I mean, it’s Whit. She’s been a bro since day one. She’d do anything for me, one hundred percent, and I don’t even need to think about who I’d want to stand beside me on the day I marry you.”

“Ash!” Crystal yelps, and she and Ali exchange glances that you’ve seen before — ones that say, will she ever learn? “You have to ask! You know Whit will say yes, but she can’t just assume that you’re going to ask her. She probably thinks you chose someone else, like Tobin or Niki or me.”

You throw your hands up in surrender as you move the soup off the burner. “Okay, chill, I’ll do it right now.”

The looks of disbelief linger.

“What?! Am I not allowed to call my best friend and ask her to stand up for me?”

Ali purses her lips and heads back to the living room to finish packing.

“People typically ask someone to be their maid of honor in a really cute, creative way. Like a gift basket and a clever pun,” Crystal explains importantly.

You wave your hand in dismissal. You’re already on speakerphone as you dial Whitney’s number. “Whit and I don’t do that girly sentimental shit.” At this moment, your lifelong friend picks up. “Dude, hey. What are you up to? How’s life in California?”

Whitney, as always, has time for you no matter what. She’s probably in the middle of packing herself, and probably helping her parents plan a huge Christmas party blowout. “I’m just chillin’, packin’ and such. Ready to see my partner in crime in two days! And you?”

“Wanna be my best man?”

“Oh.”

“What, is that a no?”

Her voice trails off at the end of her sentence like it always does when you’ve done something wrong and don’t realize it and she wants to be passive aggressive about it for a bit. “No, I’ll totally do it; it’s just that…most people do more than just call and drop the bomb…like maybe put some thought into it…but that’s not our thing, I guess…”

Your jaw drops. “Don’t tell me you expected some gift basket and stupid shitty pun.”

“No, no, I didn’t expect it. It just would have been nice…”

“Well fuck, Whit, are you going to be my best man or not? I’ll buy you some beer and we can watch bad documentaries all night.”

Whitney sighs submissively and you smirk — you knew there was no chance she’d say no. “I mean, since you don’t have any other friends, I guess I’ll do it.”

“No, it’s fine, I can totally ask Niki. Or Hope, I’m sure Hope would love to stand beside me on the most important day of my life, because that’s what Hope does, ya know, supports people.”

“Okay. God. I said I would do it.” She pauses. “You’re a little shit, ya know that?”

“Love you too.” You end the phone call and turn to Crystal. “See? She’s all in. Put Whit down as my best man. Oh! And I found a minister!”

Ali smiles proudly — you’re finally pulling your weight in the wedding planning and acting interested in something other than seeing her in a white gown and taking that white gown off of her later that evening after you’re both all partied out and ready for some down time. “Good!”

You watch the wheels turn in her head and know she’s thinking you’ve asked Tobin, maybe, or Cheney or A-Rod — someone who loves the Lord and will make your wedding very well-spoken and spiritual as well as fun, or if you went a more traditional route, you probably secured the pastor from your grandmother’s church in Florida.

“Who’s the minister?” Crystal asks, pen poised over the paper ready to write.

“Niki,” you say confidently, ladling some soup into bowls for your roommates.

It’s hard to be certain, but you think Ali just choked on the very air she breathes. “Niki?! As in Niki Cross?!” she bursts finally through watery eyes and a red face. You nod innocently. “No way! No fucking way am I letting Niki Cross officiate my wedding! Does she even believe in God?! That’s gonna send us straight to hell, Ashlyn. Niki cannot be our minister, I’m sorry.”

“I already told her she could.”

“Why would you do that?!?!”

“She didn’t have another role. Whit’s my best man, and since we aren’t having a big bridal party she couldn’t be in that. And she’s way too important to me to hand out programs at the door.”

Crystal looks mildly offended. “Hey, I’m handing out programs.”

“Ashlyn, our wedding will be a JOKE!” Ali cries, looking horrified and like she might cry. “Nobody is going to take it seriously! We’re going to have gay, semi-agnostic Niki as our minister, my brother as the maid of honor, and your best girl friend as the best man! Next thing you know, Morgan and Kling will be our flower girls, Kelley will be the dj, and Becky will be the caterer! It sounds like a bad reality show.”

You can’t help it — you laugh. “Alex, I don’t know if you know this, but…” (you lower your voice) “we’re gay and semi-agnostic too.” She laughs a little despite the single tear running down her cheek. “And baby, our wedding is going to be so fun. We’re going to have Niki up there, and Kyle and Whit, and the people we love most in this world too, and we’re going to be married after that, and really that’s all that matters.”

“And if nothing else, you have until August to find another minister!” Crystal says brightly.

You groan.

August is so far away, and you have so little patience.

\- - - - - - - - - - - - - 

Washington, D.C. Late December 2016.

It’s a cold, rainy day three days before Christmas in Capitol Hill when Crystal comes busting through your front door, bundled from head to toe in a winter coat, Sorrel snowboots, leggings, and a beanie. She comes bearing soup for you and Ali (both on the tail end of a poorly timed run in with the flu) and bad news.

“You look like you’ve seen a ghost,” Ali observes in a croaky voice, not moving from the spot she’s been curled into on the couch for several days now.

“You’re not on the protected list,” Crystal blurts clumsily, setting down the hot soup on the coffee table.

Ali bolts upright despite her lack of energy and yells, “I’m not on the protected list?!” The effort immediately sends her into a coughing fit, and she groans frustratedly as she falls back onto your lap.

Crystal stands awkwardly in the doorway looking nervously between your eyes and the place where Ali is collapsed against you. You widen your eyes as if to say, “Well?!”

“Right! Right!” she bursts, slipping off her boots and coming into the living room fully, apparently forgetting her earlier claim that she wasn’t going to stay long in case you were still contagious. “Coach! I saw Coach in line getting soup at Ripple, and we started talking, and he mentioned something about the season, and — I don’t know, maybe he meant to — but he accidentally said, ‘I’m afraid our backline will struggle without Kriegs this year’ and when I called him out on it — because I totally called him out on it, Als — he tried to backtrack and say that you’d be gone a lot because of the Olympics. But I knew better!”

“He flat out didn’t put me on the protected list?” Ali mumbles, the perplexity in her voice betraying how confident she’s trying to look. You know she’s been concerned about her place on the team since it was announced that Mark will be coaching for Portland come season, not D.C.

“Well, I don’t think it’s that one-sided. He can only have two allocations on the protected list since there’s a new team that needs talent now, and no way was he going to leave Ashlyn off after the season she had. And…” Crystal’s voice trails off as she sits down in the recliner.

“And you’re the MVP of the league, so you’re obviously not going to be left off either,” she finishes for your third roommate, her eyes downcast. A silence fills the air for a beat or two. “Is it a done deal? Am I…am I going to Orlando?”

Crystal exhales loudly and sighs. “They were talking like it was, Ali. I’m sorry.”

Again, the silence takes over. It creeps up your skin as you rub your thumb comfortingly over her shoulder, reminding her without words that she’s still the best right back in the world, that you still love her more than anything else in the world, that she’s still your everything.

“But!”

You and Ali both jump at the sudden word from Crystal, who looks as though a light bulb has gone off in her brain.

“But, I think there IS one thing we can do, and I’m almost certain it would work.”

She leans forward in the recliner as a giant grin spreads across her face, and the two of you have to lean forward as well to hear her.

“A wedding.”

“We’re already getting married, Crystal,” you remind her. “After the Olympics. And it’ll be like Syd and Alex at that point — they don’t get to play in the same city as their husbands.”

“But you know there're different rules in place for the women’s league, Ashlyn. You’re part of the reason they exist! If you guys got married before the draft, there’s not much they can do. They can’t move you under the new clause. They’d have to keep you both here and send someone else to Orlando.”

Ali stares. “The draft is in less than a month, Crystal, and the wedding is set for August. We can’t just change it up.”

“Sure you can,” she insists. “You can do anything. You’re Ali Krieger.”

When neither of you say anything, instead just look at each other in wonder, the smile on Crystal’s face grows wider. “I’ll start making some calls then!”

\- - - - - - - - - - - - - 

Washington, D.C. New Year’s Eve 2015.

Christmas has come and gone without much acknowledgement from anyone who loves Ali Krieger and Ashlyn Harris.

You learned a long time ago that your teammates work quickly and efficiently, so you don’t say much when Christmas Day comes around and the presents sit unopened beneath the tree as people bustle around them all day, on the phone with the caterer or the venue or the dj or the florist or a teammate who’s across the country. When Rylie Rampone moves a gift out of the way with her shoe as she carries a box of champagne flutes from the attic to the kitchen for Carli, you don’t mention to Christie that her kids are missing their Christmas too. Hope is on the phone with the venue when she realizes that it’s her favorite day of the year — she nods at the calendar reverently before turning back to the notebook in front of her without another thought. Whitney fields phone calls from her family all day, and you pretend not to hear her answering them in the backyard, apologizing for missing the Christmas bash for the first time probably ever and telling her mom that she’ll be home soon enough.

Without these people, Ali would be on a plane to Orlando come late February.

That realization is not lost on you as you watch people work all day and all night to make sure that you two get to be together, that she isn’t across the country playing soccer come preseason, that you’re married and her request to stay is through the system before the 2016 NWSL draft in under a month. It doesn’t come as much of a surprise, really. These people are your family. They’re a group of the most giving, compassionate, selfless people you have ever met, and you’ve known for a long time that they’d do anything for you. Of course, now you’re seeing it in action. They’ve been working tirelessly to get the wedding pushed up over half a year — starting with finding a venue available on such short notice that can still hold nearly two hundred people, choosing flowers, notifying the entire guest list, and finding a caterer.

Kelley is the dj. You’ve been praying since she volunteered herself for the job that this won’t crash and burn.

And, in a strange turn of events, Becky has let you all know that she’s “fairly confident” that she can cook a meal for two hundred. She’s recruited Hope, JJ, and Kling to help her in the kitchen.

You still aren’t sure how they managed to pull this off, but you’re getting married in under twelve hours to the love of your life.

The morning dawns clear and cold, a bitter chill lingering in the air though the sun has appeared for the first time in nearly a week. A layer of fresh powder is piled atop the foot or so of packed ice, pushed off the roads by snowplows and left to turn a cold, icy gray with slush and dirt. The sky is blue — a more clear, pure blue that brings a wave of happiness to your chest as you squint up at the sun in the early hours of the day — and the air feels more crisp and clean than you can ever remember it being. You’re a firm believer that every day is beautiful, but today seems to be a little different — a little brighter, a little sunnier, a little more beautiful to get married than any other before.

You’re out the door as the sun rises, in your Jeep with a thermos of black coffee in your hand and polarized sunglasses to protect your eyes from the glare off the snow. In your living room, you sidestep the piles of girls on pallets, running on a little sleep and a lot of coffee in preparation for your big day. You’re certain you’re the only one awake, but when you get into your car, HAO is up, dressed, and in your passenger seat, shades on and ready to go.

“Where ya goin’?” she wonders, watching as you buckle your seatbelt with a puzzled look in your eyes.

“I was going to the venue,” you mumble, staring at the steaming mug of coffee in your cupholder.

“Yeah, I heard you’re getting married today,” HAO answers with mild sarcasm dripping from her voice. “Pretty cool.”

In silence, you arrive at the National Building Museum with HAO in your front seat. It’s remarkable, you think, how much this friend of yours is like Ali — she’s been drinking your coffee, not having prepared her own, changing the radio station every two minutes, and backseat driving with a hint of passive aggression: “watch out for this up here, it’s probably really icy” and “the light’s red” and “what’s the speed limit here?” You suppose that’s why the two of them get along so well. They’re both stubborn as they come, heads as hard as nails, overwhelmingly kind and compassionate and strong and brave. It doesn’t occur to you that there are tears gathered in the corners of HAO’s eyes as you sigh heavily and turn off your car, getting ready to go inside and see what else needs to be done before the wedding.

“Hey.”

You stop halfway out the car, one foot on the icy pavement and the other still inside on the warm floor mat. “Yeah, HAO?”

“I hope you know how much we’d all give up for the two of you, you and Ali. There are a lot of good people in this world, and I get to know so many of them, and I still can’t think of any two who are more deserving of today than you two.”

You realize that you don’t know how to respond to words so kind, so you go with what comes out of your mouth first. ”You’ve already given so much, HAO. You guys gave up your Christmases to make sure that we’d get to stay together for the seasons to come.”

The mood lightens a bit when HAO grins. “Well, we spent so long trying to get you two to just date already, we weren’t about to let one lousy NWSL thing keep you guys apart.”

Inside, you’re surprised to see that there are still people working — Cheney’s husband, Jrue, helping Kelley set up a dj booth; Alex and Syd setting up centerpieces of crystal vases with gold glitter and icicle lights on the tables; the scents of Becky at work in the kitchen already. Most surprising, though, is Hope. You spot her last, as HAO is off to finish “supervising” the men who are hanging golden ornament balls from the high, industrial ceilings amongst the lights strung up last night. She’s atop a ladder with a nail in her mouth and a hammer hanging from the loop in her jeans as she nails up a sign above the candy table that says “love is sweet - enjoy a treat!” And while you’ve always known Hope to be a good person — as much as she tries to play like she’s invincible, above it all, untouchable, unemotional, she’s got one of the truest, kindest hearts you’ve ever known — she was the last person you’d expect to stay up all night to make sure your wedding venue is ready to go by seven pm.

“Hey, Solo,” you say quietly, approaching the ladder.

She looks down at you and motions to the table behind you. “Hand me that level, will you? I think this is crooked, and Ali will be out for blood if it isn’t straight.”

You comply and stand in silence, watching as she straightens the sign above the candy table. “So you’ve been up all night doing this?” you ask cautiously.

“I’m not the devil, Ashlyn. I thought you knew that.”

“No, no, that’s not at all what I’m saying! I just…I don’t know. I didn’t expect you to be up all night making sure my wedding venue was ready. I mean, I’d expect Kell and Jrue. Maybe Alex too, and Syd even though she loves her sleep. But I thought you’d for sure be back at the house asleep.”

Hope steps off the ladder and places the hammer in your hand while looking at you like you’re crazy. “I’m not that heartless, Harris. You may steal my job one day, but I’m still happy for you. I think everyone deserves a beautiful day.” She pauses as she turns to go get her coat and head back to the house. “Also, one day in 2011, I told you that Ali Krieger was a devil and that she could never love you the way she loved Jesse.”

“And?”

As she walks away, she calls her response over her shoulder. “So I was wrong, and that in itself deserves to be celebrated.”

\- - - - - - - - - - - - - 

“I can’t believe you guys pulled it off.”

You tear your eyes away from the dance floor where Ali is “hitting the quan” with a few of your teammates and her youngest stepbrother and make yourself look to your side where Tobin sits.

“I can’t believe YOU guys pulled it off,” you correct, finally forcing your gaze away from your wife in her wedding gown. “We didn’t have to do much. It’s you guys who made this all happen.”

Tobin looks at you like you’re crazy. “Oh, I’m not talking about the wedding,” she says nonchalantly, “I’m talking about the relationship. I thought this was like next to impossible. Serious congrats on beating all the odds.” She picks up her champagne glass, tips it to you reverently, and takes a long haul. “Looks like Whit and Kyle are about to give their speeches.”

Ali swoops over as the song ends and situates herself in your lap with a giggle. You sigh impatiently and swallow the want in your throat as she kisses your ear. Still, you manage to direct your attention to near the dj booth Kelley is manning and watch Whit take the microphone.

She’s a little buzzed — who isn’t when the gals are together? — and there’s a half-full glass of merlot in her hand, just enough to take the edge off her fear of public speaking. “Is it on?” you hear her mumble to Kelley, who nods. She taps the microphone against her palm. “I don’t think it’s on, Kell.”

Kelley turns up something on the soundboard. The microphone screeches; everyone covers their ears; Whitney laughs.

“Oops!” she giggles in a typical buzzed-Whitney fashion, nodding at Kelley and turning back to face the room of wedding-goers. “So, if you haven’t figured it out by now, I’m Whitney, Ash’s best man and partner in crime, quite literally seeing as how we have done some illegal stuff together through the years.” Whit pauses to let her audience laugh, and Kelley fumbles with the soundboard again. “I like to tell people that I didn’t have a sister growing up, because it makes since if you don’t think about it — mostly it’s just accepted as me not having a sister at all because I wasn’t born with one. The part most people fail to pay attention to is that I say I didn’t have a sister growing up. That’s because I didn’t meet my sister until college.”

You try to hide the fact that your eyes are welling up and you are having a hard time breathing, but you know you’re failing miserably.

“Until I met Ashlyn, I had no clue what people meant when they talked about those friends that became sisters, who made memories together and did life together and stayed up all night talking about fears and futures and loves and losses. I had no clue what it meant to have a sister, to have someone who would always be on my side no matter what, to have someone I could talk to day or night, to have someone who understood what it was to embrace sisterhood when it wasn’t something you were born with. I had no clue that someone could see every part of me and still want to be my friend, still want to love me, still call me her sister. Without Ashlyn, I don’t know that I’d ever have learned how to be a teammate. A friend. A sounding board. A confidant. A sister.

“I think it was Anson who told us once that it’s what you do when nobody is looking that makes you great. Now, seeing as how Ashlyn is old, I’ve had the honor of watching her consistently work hard for all the great things she’s earned in life, but none of them — no World Cup, no NCAA title, no save, no amount of fame — make me as proud of her as I am today.” Whitney looks directly at you, the tears in her eyes (and yours) finally spilling over. “Thanks for being my sister, my best friend, my number one, my person, and my sister. There’s nobody who deserves happily ever after more than you, Ash. I love you.”

\- - - - - - - - - - - - - 

Rio de Janeiro. August 2016.

Ali’s not wearing the ring.

There’s a gold medal hanging heavily around your neck, you’re drenched in champagne, and your teammates are crowded around you, but all you can do is stare at your wife.

She’s not wearing the ring.

You ignore the craziness of the locker room around you and stare at her half-naked body — her torso, naked other than the gold medal and sports bra; her toned legs; her socked feet. It isn’t until Hope nudges you with her good shoulder and makes a smart comment that you tear your eyes away from Ali.

“Stop undressing Kriegs with your eyes and put on some clothes so we can go get our drink on,” she says mildly though she’s still got an ice pack wrapped around her left shoulder.  
 “I’m not undressing her with my eyes,” you reply softly, glancing back to where your wife is dancing off to the shower. “Look. She isn’t wearing the ring.”

Hope turns her eyes toward the crowd of defenders, and you sense the slight stiffness as she remembers that it had to be you, not her, leading them to that gold this time — you, not her, with that shutout in the final after she went down atop Jodie Taylor in the first half of the game. “Sure she is. Look at her finger. Nobody could miss that rock.”

You shake your head. “Not her wedding ring. Look at her neck.”

And for the first time in six years, Ali’s neck is naked. There is no silver chain hanging around her throat; no worn silver engagement ring hanging between her breasts. She’s not wearing the little sign of her past.

For her, it feels like the natural thing to do when you’re no longer in love with someone — take off the last thing that reminds you of them.

For you, it feels like a miracle.

\- - - - - - - - - - - - - 

Washington, D.C. January 2017.

You can feel the silence before you reach the front door.

It’s quiet, too quiet, and the thud of your Nike gym bag hitting the floor resounds throughout the whole house.

It shouldn’t be this quiet when Ali is home.

“Ali?” you call timidly, taking the stairs two at a time.

There is no answer.

“Ali!” Your voice is more frantic this time as you round the landing on the stairs and reach your bedroom door.

Inside, there’s a muffled commotion followed by Ali mumbling shyly, “One minute.”

You release the breath you didn’t know you were holding and relax, giving her time to get to the door rather than choosing to bust in unannounced. And there she is, the door halfway open and her head peeking out. Her hair is messy, messier than you’ve seen it, and she’s still wearing her glasses. She’s naked from the waist down, dressed the way you left her this morning in a baggy tee shirt and underwear with bare feet and a headache.

“Sorry,” she mumbles again, opening the door only slightly wider, to where you can see that she’s been cuddled beneath the covers for hours now.

“Baby, it’s four o’clock,” you say.

She nods.

“Your head feeling better?” You lean in to kiss her, but she turns away at the last minute and you only graze her cheek. “Ali?” You can’t help but look at her with confusion and slight hurt in your eyes.

“It wasn’t my head bothering me this morning,” she admits quietly, opening the door the rest of the way and glancing anxiously toward the bathroom. “And trust me, you don’t want to kiss me right now. I’ve been sick all day.”

Your gaze instantly softens as you guide her gently to the bed and tuck her in, crawling in behind her and pressing light kisses to her shoulders as you run your hands over the slight swell of her abdomen. “I’m sorry you’ve been feeling sick,” you whisper, hoping that she’ll fall back asleep.

“It’s your kid’s fault,” she moans, burying her face into the front of your sweatshirt.

You can’t help but laugh. “I know, baby. I’m so sorry. Every poor quality this child ever possesses must be from the Harris gene pool, correct?” She nods weakly. You kiss the top of her head. “How about I go make you some tea?”

Another weak nod. You grab your phone and hope she doesn’t follow you down the stairs. You have a phone call to make.

The voice that picks up on the other end of the line instantly comforts you. “Hey, little mama, how’re things going today?”

“Shouldn’t the morning sickness be over by now? Like, shouldn’t she be feeling better and be able to at least somewhat get out of the house? I don’t know, maybe I’m overreacting.”

Lauren laughs. “I take it that things are not good.”

“She’s been sick all day again.”

“Well, I was sick for a while too,” your friend reminds you, and you hear her two-month-old daughter cry in the background for maybe four seconds before it has stopped. She always has had that magic touch with babies. “Ali’s only, what, sixteen weeks? Give it a little longer. And if you’re really concerned, ask her doctor about it next time you go. And remember that pregnancy isn’t that fun so she isn’t going to feel fantastic until that baby’s in her arms.”

You breathe a sigh of relief. “You’ve always been the best; ya know that, Cheney?”

“I’m just learning as I go,” she answers amusedly, but you know she’s just being humble. If there’s anyone who can be a super athlete, a super wife, a super human, and a super mom, it’s Lauren Holiday. “And remember to stop worrying every now and then. You’ll forget to enjoy the little moments.”

Ali appears beside you in the kitchen looking annoyed and grumpy. “I thought you were making me tea?” she says in the most passive-aggressive voice you’ve ever heard her use.

Lauren laughs. “Is that her?” You mumble your affirmation, and she laughs again. “Hey, Kriegs, hang in there! It’ll get better. And cut Ash some slack every now and then!”

She grumbles in reply, and you and Cheney both have to laugh. It’s going to be a long six months.

\- - - - - - - - - - - - - 

Washington, D.C. July 2020.

“We’re going to be late! Let’s go!”

Three-year-old Jett comes crashing down the stairs, a shock of wavy blonde hair falling in the eyes that so remind you of Ali. “Mommy said to stop yelling,” he says earnestly as you help him into his Vans sneakers.

“Well, you can tell Mommy that I said…” You let your voice trail off before you finish your sentence and tie the knot on his shoe emphatically. “Where’s your hat, buddy?”

He points up the stairs to his bedroom.

“Well, go get it, son,” you say, a hint of annoyance creeping into your voice. Your son is so much like his mother, it’s not even funny. The boy has no sense of time, no sense of urgency, no sense of hustle.

Ali appears at the top of the stairs with one-year-old Ace on her hip and a very peeved expression on her face. “Do I hear my wife yelling at us to hurry?”

You smile as peaceably as you can muster up. “Your wife is only yelling at you to hurry because we are going to miss our flight if you don’t.”

She returns this with a very soft kiss on the lips as she slides the keys into your hands. “Well then, I guess we’d better get going. We have a gold medal to win.”


End file.
